Today’s Moon – Photo: L. Weikel

Another Observation

As I sit here contemplating what I’m going to write this evening and how I’d like to spend my weekend, I’m struck by another observation. Even after an entire year of pandemic isolation, I still hear a voice in my head telling me that I do not have the luxury of spending a couple of days doing my version of ‘nothing.’

Now that I acknowledge that’s what I’m hearing in my head, I realize how weird and oddly repressive it is. Seriously. What’s with that? Why do I tell myself these things and perhaps more importantly, why do I succumb to the – what is it? – guilt?

Yes, I read some of the articles published early on in the pandemic entreating us to imagine what we could accomplish in our isolation. I pretty much knew they were bullshit from the start; but yeah, I also secretly told myself that I would indeed be able to accomplish a few of my treasured aspirations. I’d have no excuses.

I admit it: I held myself to a higher standard than I apply to others. I’m an introvert, I’d tell myself. These should be my power circumstances.

Not How It Plays Out

But that doesn’t seem to be the way life plays out. Our outer circumstances may change – even drastically – but if we don’t make a point of examining our inner landscape, it’s almost a given that we’ll end up getting nowhere. That’s because the obstacles and land mines we set for ourselves between where we are and where we tell ourselves we want to go are the most insidious. And if you really pay attention to that last sentence, you’ll see one of the biggest traps revealed.

“…where we tell ourselves we want to go.” Yeah. When was the last time I took the time to truly assess where I am in my life and then ask myself where I want to go and what else I want to accomplish?

How often do I tell myself I ‘have’ to do x, y, or z, when I would almost certainly be better served by plunking myself down and completing that course I signed up for three months ago? I was having so much fun with it! I was learning totally new skills and feeling a modicum of victoriousness (is that even a word?), when I suddenly put it at the bottom of my ‘to do’ list.

I’m Not Alone

Following on the heels of those early pandemic articles exhorting how much we might accomplish in our isolation if we just exercised some personal responsibility, I’ve recently noticed some articles that put a name to some of the disappointment and reticence over diving into new endeavors or returning to old ones: languishing.

I can’t say that I’m experiencing this with full-on intensity. But some of what I read in these articles rings familiar. And an even more interesting phenomenon that maybe feels a little more close to the bone than I’d like to admit is ‘revenge bedtime procrastination.’

Umm. Glancing at my watch…yeah.

Waxing Moon in Virgo – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-217)