Do Less, Feel More
It’s hard to unknow what you now know.
My 2023 horoscope forecasts a new 12 year cycle of expansion and success. Huzzah?
The last time I embarked on a similar cycle, my life took off along a road of fast-moving growth filled with external validation and prosperity. Life was filled with the frenetic energy of achievement and accolades, and it was easy to think that the same velocity would continue throughout my life.
In many ways, the past few years reflected a surprisingly welcome pause of that cycle. I required the slowness–the “wintering,” as coined by author Katherine May–but as I step into this year I find myself anxious to figure out what’s next and frustrated by the lack of answers. I often felt suspended in this equal parts traumatic and fulfilling time, a time I struggled to quantify through previous markers of success. In the tail end of that suspension last year, I felt at times unmoored, frequently searching for a new tool, program or guru who could show me the way back to the velocity of the years 2008-2019. Those years felt challenging at times, but I could point to mile markers and say, “This, this is where I achieved. This is where I made a difference. You see? I’ve figured it out.” I miss the naive certainty and drive of it all. It’s hard to unknow what you now know.
At the start of this year, I came across a friendly acquaintance’s goal setting spreadsheet, a personal interpretation of the OKR (objectives and key results) system I use in my professional life. So smart. So rigorous. So linear. I was sold and set out to interpret the format for my own use.
Little by little, I added goals with prompts like “be healthy” (lower my blood sugar levels), “stay healthy” (schedule and show up to all of the doctor appointments recommended for a 48-year-old woman), “be IRL” (aka be less URL, meaning put down the phone and the internet), and honor self-loving boundaries (learn to listen to my needs and say no).
The sheet feels reflective of many of my personal development and adulting goals, but somehow the deliverables still feel somewhat authoritarian and severe. I even wrote a goal to send you at least one newsletter per month, and no sooner were the words saved by Google than a paralysis of not knowing what to write set in.
Where is the fun? I keep asking myself.
Fun, or a lack thereof, has come up repeatedly over the past few years. In the Before Times I would have said, going out and singing karaoke, a night of dancing in the East Village or learning how to Vogue sounded like fun, and they still do, but I have a hard time grasping how to incorporate that in my post-pandemic life. I feel myself wanting more quiet, more time one-on-one with a friend, more time to read poetry and be quiet and connect. It’s like I discovered I’m actually an introvert, I recently shared with a friend, except the truth is not that simple. I am just different and I still don’t know how to name it.
Late last year a mentor suggested that instead of focusing on my goals for 2023 I focus on infusing a sense of fun and beauty into my life. I asked friends on Facebook for tips on how they go about it and I now have a list of prompts as a resource when I’m feeling uninspired. But the truth is that I’ve spent most of my time off baking and cooking, which not one person mentioned.
I was “nesting,” a coworker told me when I described my winter vacation once back at work. I brushed past the comment, slightly embarrassed. The word sounded like it meant I was either a newlywed homemaker or an octogenarian. I felt like I should have done something society deems fun or adventurous, like jetting off to Thailand or hosting multiple parties in my Catskills home. Instead, I puttered (like I did this past August, when I discovered my new love of gardening) and baked, and wondered what it might feel like to do less. I read on the couch. I pet Gertrude and Earnestine. I stared out the window.
I feared looking at the work travel on my calendar this year, something that used to make me feel excited, something I could build into an adventure even, instead the thought of travel made me feel homesick. Irritated and uncomfortable with the sensation, I buckled down and turned to my spreadsheets and Google docs as if they were some oracle or sacred stone that if touched the right way would source a new energy capable of taking on this year and Be. More. Productive.
Two weeks into that grind I came down with what I am calling The Crud and am now on Day 7 of apartment-arrest, forcing myself to take it easy, rest, drink fluids and recover. I, of course, have put up a good fight, relying on Mucinex, Theraflu, buckets of tea, cough drops and Kleenex to get through the piles of work and achieve, achieve, achieve. Thank god for the mute and camera off buttons on Zoom, so that I could virtually “step out” of each digital room when a cough or sneezing attack struck.
This past weekend I committed to staying indoors and “taking it easy,” but when I texted a photo of the piles of books I was sorting and decluttering from my bedroom to my friend, noting that my head was pounding, she replied, “Carla Zanoni!!! You did a lot today.”
Facebook recently decided to start “reminding” me of “memories” from the start of 2020. I am struck by the quiet moments I captured online—highlighted lines of poetry, hopeful street photo, snippets of my writing. A central theme comes across in all of these posts: Live.
The thing is, I am no longer sure what that edict really means. Is living moving at warp speed or is it napping with the dog in the afternoon? Oddly, one of my best memories of last year was when I caught COVID: I was able to slow down and just relax. Although, come to think of it, by day four I had already reorganized my bedroom closet and armoire (I couldn’t leave the room) and started researching what it would take to get my Italian or Spanish citizenship based on my family lineage.
Other thoughts while I’ve been stuck in apartment captivity: Maybe I should start an Etsy store loaded with artisanal gifts and beautifully curated items I find during my travels—or perhaps move upstate full time and open a car parts store with a secret witchcraft and poetry shop you can only enter by saying a magic word (word of mouth spread through social media, of course). Does the secret to success this year involve baking small cakes in the shape of tiny houses dusted in powdered sugar snow for my neighbors? Or is it putting my fingers to the grindstone by drafting a marketing plan that will surely sell my book?
Will taking my eye off the agreed-upon (by whom!?) goal line and going easy on myself result in never achieving the things I always said I would do? Am I letting go of things or is it in the easing of my grip that life will take on the flow it once had? I have read many books and spent years learning the spiritual and enlightened answer to this question, but letting go of the dictator in my head is a life’s work.
So, instead, I unexpectedly rearranged the mason jars of grains and nuts above our kitchen sink, audited every book I own and scattered small piles I should donate or read all over the apartment, and then looked to the stars, my astrological reading, reaching for some hope or a sign that powers greater than me will create the current of change and take me along. And then I sent you this.
Happy New Year.
Beautiful reflections, and relevant to me in so many ways.
Loved loved loved this!