2542U
Many little things today. This is my first full weekend in a while when I don’t have extra work or any plans and we’re just at home, relaxing. It feels refreshing, even though I’m always driven to do more more more, today I feel good about not having much to do.
I started a new job recently, this was my first full week. I’m stressed and exhausted, as usual in a new workplace: all the new people to get to know, new processes and projects and systems to understand take huge mental efforts. I feel the need to hit the ground running, I’m impatient and want to get to the point where I can be productive and independent quickly. Almost every day I come home tired, mentally drained. This is how it always is when I start something new, but it’s hard to remember that this isn’t how it will always be, it’s just the first month that’s like this.
I am also frustrated that most days I don’t have the time or energy to do much else that’s productive beyond work. I feel the need to justify anything I do or spend time on with how it contributes to building a different life, to building success in the things I find valuable. Now with the new job I can’t leave early to walk around the city photographing or get coffee and work on “my own stuff”, so I feel constrained. In truth, there is a difference between being annoyed I can’t do the things I do because I enjoy doing them and being annoyed because I can’t do the things I do because they make me feel productive, like I’m progressing towards some nebulous “better future”. Not everything needs to be about productivity though. I discovered this need to justify everything I spend time on with how it’s actually productive.
I struggle to do things simply because I enjoy doing them, everything needs to be justified with something more acceptably productive. I’m not shooting street photography because it’s fun for me, I’m shooting it because that will lead to me being a famous, well respected photographer. With the new dayjob I don’t have the time or energy for these pretend-productive things, so I’m frustrated. I do have the time to just hang out for an hour in the city however, I do have the time to walk the neighbourhood in the afternoon and make photos of good light, without a big, important story or mission behind them. I wish I was able to accept this, to feel good about doing things I like doing. In the long run, building a better life means a life built around doing the things I like to do, how I like to do them. However I can make that work is fine, as long as the fun and enjoyment and personal satisfaction is there. I want to shake off this “protestant work ethic” that I seem to have ingested and internalized that has been plagueing me for all my adult life.
I want to learn to be okay with not always seeming productive. Life isn’t about that, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is what I fill my days with and how that makes me feel. Whatever can enable that is fine. My life wouldn’t be better if I had more time to think up big business projects or career moves that then create pressure to photograph or write or work in a certain way. It would be better however if I had more time to spend with the people I love and photographing what draws me in. I want to differentiate between the two, and focus on the latter.
This is a messy thought I’m still in the process of properly articulating, but it feels good to think about and I think it will help me come back to being more myself after the past year of stress and burnout.
Well, anyways.