Something just happened right now ...

Dear Friends,

(If you are one of those people that don’t like reading, you can listen to this below - I just read it so apologies if it sounds like I am reading, I am lol).

Yesterday I was perturbed because I had no classes and no meetings - nothing - but I could not seem to bring myself to focus and work for more than an hour, if even.

I was so frustrated - for different reasons:

I was frustrated by what felt like an inability to use my time wisely, or put differently, my ability to waste so much time

I was frustrated as I started to question whether I was so used to working under conditions in which I put pressure on myself, that given a pressure/deadline-free day, I was unable to bring myself to work.

I was frustrated that I was so focused on my inability to work that it rendered the rest of my day useless, and I then was unable to do anything else

Etc.

The backstory to all this is that in the last few weeks, I have been increasingly focused on being my whole self, and living the truth that I am more than the work I do, more than my ‘productivity’ in any given day. That I don’t need to earn the time that I spend not working. So I have been trying to relax, genuinely relax, without feeling as though ‘I shouldn’t be doing this’.

I have had mixed results. On the one hand I am seeing evidence that I have been overly and unnecessarily worried in the past. That I am the annoying student who says ‘oh I am going to fail’ but then actually gets an A. I am that person. And I noticed it when, this weekend, I started to panic that I had been ‘too relaxed’ and that it somehow would translate to my not doing well on my midterm, not finishing my french homework well, and not even reading the case for one of my classes (I didn’t read the case). But it was all a lie. I haven’t gotten my grades back, but the midterm felt fine - I didn’t stare at the page thinking wtf. I did my french homework, missed some instructions here and there, but again, its not even graded and more importantly, I am taking the class pass-fail. I did my best given it was 11pm and I was tired. I got to my other class to find that two other students in my group hadn’t done the readings either, because life happens and also nobody ever died from not preparing for class discussion that one time. So I am noticing these realities - that my worry is almost always unfounded - but I still worry that it is a lie that I am telling myself because I want more time to read or watch my Korean dramas.

And that is just it. I do want more time to read and watch my Korean dramas. I want to be able to think of a friend I have not spoken to in a while and pick up the phone to call them, without being anxious that I won’t be able to do any work if I make one call (friends, I still love you, just dealing with myself here). I do want to work on the other ideas my brain comes up with, some serious, some not so serious, all an expression of the immense creativity and passion that I have within me.

The problem is not that I want to do all these things, but that I think that using any time to do all these things is bad, or at best, a waste of the time I could spend doing my work. It is like there is a part of me that feels caged, and then when the cage is open, it is afraid to come out because it is so used to being caged. Or it does come out, but feels so guilty about coming out that it goes right back in. The analogy that I came up with last night was that I have grown up believing that I must be married to my work, and so everything else that I want to do, or do eventually do feels as though I am having an affair. That hour or two in my day that I spend reading or watching tv, comes with the same guilt as a person who has snuck out to cheat on their spouse. It sounds so ridiculous, but it is true.

I am not married to my work. Even though we have been living in close quarters all this time, it is not a commitment I have ever willingly made. My work is better described as person I really like - a friend, but definitely not a spouse. Why? Because I am still learning about myself, and how to be my full self. I am not yet ready to make any commitment to be tied to doing one thing, and that thing only. I don’t think I ever will be, because there are so many different sides to me! The person I bring to my work is often afraid and unsure of herself, wanting to do and be other things, but always holding back - because I shouldn’t be cheating on my work. That is not a healthy relationship - marriage, friendship whatever it is. I want my relationship with my work to be full of love and the genuine excitement and gratitude I feel that I have the opportunity to be doing what I am doing, but it is riddled with fear, anxiety and self-doubt. Not the best conditions for growth.

So I guess I can say that I am in the process of an amicable separation. It is amicable because I still love my work, it is a huge part of my life. But it is still hard. It is hard because I am doubting that this is a sensible thing to do. I know it is, but I am still learning to trust myself so I am not 100% convinced. The funny thing is that the idea of not doing something well, at least to the best of my abilities, is preposterous to me. Yet, somehow, even though I know it is a lie, I allow myself to be pressured by that voice telling me - “if you don’t do this, you will fail.” But I never stop and respond, “and so what?!”? Fear of failure is such a ridiculous thing, especially for someone who can’t even follow through to imagine what that failure would look like.

For example, my therapist asked me last week - so what if you fail - I laughed and I said, “well that’s a bit extreme.” To show you that even I don’t truly ever consider the real possibility of failure. It’s just a scary voice in my head. However, just the threat of looking bad, of not doing something well enough, of not being on top, is enough to scare me into being unnecessarily hard on myself.

And I would add that this failure fear thing doesn’t mean that I am too brilliant to fail, it means that I am definitely not acting outside my comfort zone. It is not even a real fear of failure, because there is no real threat of failure. It is actually, a fear of not feeling safe and in control. And I think, for a lot of it, that is another huge thing holding me back - my attachment to feeling safe, even though what feels normal to me is something that I don’t even like.

Why this long—winded explanation ?

Well, I just wanted to share my panic and its roots, so that when I talk about the relief I felt this morning, it will make sense.

I am taking two classes in which research papers are due by the end of the semester, as well as outlines this week.

I have been avoiding them because I don’t know what to write - and I have been beating myself up about it, because that is what I do when I ‘fail to be on top of work’. So in the midst of this mental transformation - separation from work, frustration and uncertainty, I woke up with an extremely clear idea in my head.

It was a full sentence, most of which I forget now because I was literally waking up at the same time, but it was a clear direction for my research paper, or the beginnings of it - “I will investigate the tensions between ...” It wasn’t fully fledged, neither was it completely new. It’s something that had been ruminating at the back of my head, that I just couldn’t face working on because I didn’t know what to do. But as I slept, my brain went ahead to work on it for me. I was astounded because how is it possible that after having been asleep - a supposed state of ‘unproductivity’ (this is a lie by the way, the brain does a lot of work piecing information together while you are sleeping or in a rested state) - I woke up with a clear direction, as though I had been working on it all night.

And then it hit me, that if in my sleep, I am able to still be an effective human being, how much more evidence do I need to give myself permission to be relaxed? (And to allow myself more hours of sleep!) What more must happen to convince me that I don’t need to spend all my waking hours thinking about or doing work, that I can allow myself to do other things. That I can spend an entire Tuesday writing or connecting with people, or deeply exploring the host of ideas I have?

Another thing it has shown me, is that my body, and everything that makes it run, is my partner. My friend thinks it’s her limiting factor because she hates that she needs to waste time sleeping when there’s a lot to be done, but I think we put the limitations on our bodies by the way we treat them. Last month one of my desires was to learn habits that promote a healthy body and mind, because I was, and still am, convinced that that is a key pillar to my success. If my brain is able to keep the ship running while I am sleeping, then perhaps I should take better care of it. But more astounding, is that it happens at all, that my body is part of the team helping me to succeed. It’s another pointer to the truth - I have absolutely nothing to worry about.

It’s clear to see now, but in practice I have to keep reminding myself - Oladoyin, it’s okay. You’re fine. You didn’t spend 80% of your time working, and you are still a valuable human being etc etc.

I can relax and continue putting in the effort to be the kind of person I want to be - multidimensional and very unafraid to fully express my entire self.

It’s a big deal, this experience.

I am very adamant about the life I want to live and I am realising that it takes a lot of effort to mentally build it. It has nothing to do with doing more or being more productive, no. I completely reject the capitalist strongholds that keep us suffering as a species. It is about releasing the strain and just being. So simple, yet so hard for me to do. I know I will get there. I just need to continue being patient and reminding myself of the truth. The truth is that I can absolutely live the kind of life I want to live, that I can invent my own frame of reference and scorecard, one that has nothing to do with the superficial things that are valued, but with my ability to increasingly, courageously, fully and lovingly be myself.

I am glad that I was able to share this with you today.

Take care

Love,

O.F.P.

p.s. For anyone who is curious, I was able to write down my a brief outline of my thoughts and send to my professor. She seems more excited about the idea than I am lol. But again, just goes to show that there’s often nothing to worry about. The pressure is unnecessary. For anyone who is hard on themselves, this post is really for you.