I often ask myself if I’m content or complacent. As a perfectionist with a general fear of commitment, I interpret most comfortable lulls in life as complacency. It’s therefore difficult for me to relax; I could always be doing more, or be doing better. When I finally do allow myself to relax, I often end up feeling more anxious than I did before. I think of all the things I could have done, and feel a remorse and anger at myself for the loss of time.
Imagine that time is literally money, and like the finite amount of time you have on this planet, you are given a finite amount of money to last you the rest of your life. Given one million dollars, you would probably spend it sparingly, treasuring each and every dollar. You wouldn’t just toss $35 out the window one day*. That’s what I feel like I’m doing when I relax.
I have two comfortable states-of-mind: productive and fun. Productive is work, school, creative projects. Fun is going out with friends, snowboarding, dancing, creative projects. Relaxation is not a natural state of mind for me.
I realized that this goes far beyond the physical state of relaxation and has crept into my psyche. Staying at one job, in one place, or with one person for too long to the point where I am “relaxed” becomes complacency to me. I feel lazy, unchallenged, unfocused.
I’ve realized recently that this is unfair; just because I’m relaxed doesn’t mean I’m complacent. It may instead mean that I am content. I must, however, allow myself to be happy to truly feel it. Feeling content is a decision that you make when you haven’t “settled,” (in the negative sense) yet you feel settled (positive). The hardest part is deciphering the difference between the two, and then willing yourself to make a change or to be happy.
Imagine that time is literally money, and like the finite amount of time you have on this planet, you are given a finite amount of money to last you the rest of your life. Given one million dollars, you would probably spend it sparingly, treasuring each and every dollar. You wouldn’t just toss $35 out the window one day*. That’s what I feel like I’m doing when I relax.
I have two comfortable states-of-mind: productive and fun. Productive is work, school, creative projects. Fun is going out with friends, snowboarding, dancing, creative projects. Relaxation is not a natural state of mind for me.
I realized that this goes far beyond the physical state of relaxation and has crept into my psyche. Staying at one job, in one place, or with one person for too long to the point where I am “relaxed” becomes complacency to me. I feel lazy, unchallenged, unfocused.
I’ve realized recently that this is unfair; just because I’m relaxed doesn’t mean I’m complacent. It may instead mean that I am content. I must, however, allow myself to be happy to truly feel it. Feeling content is a decision that you make when you haven’t “settled,” (in the negative sense) yet you feel settled (positive). The hardest part is deciphering the difference between the two, and then willing yourself to make a change or to be happy.
*The average person lives about 28,815 days in their life (1/28,815 = 35/1,000,000)
This is a timeless lesson: some driven types make it through life (a hard, tortured life) never appreciating what it is to “feel settled.” I think it’s a milestone in life, getting to this point, and it arrives most clearly after recognizing those battery-recharge moments are inescapably linked to the subsequent accomplishments. And that the limit of 28,000+ days actually gets lifted with each increment of recharge.
ReplyDeleteLook at the folks who are aged 90+. They know their way around feeling settled. And they even accept that — after a certain point — “settling” for something isn’t the negative that youth makes it out to be. Instead, it’s the humbling, eye-opening moment of recognition: that some aspects of life that were once confused for “mediocre” are actually glorious and life-affirming.