breakup letter to 'more' mentality

2 minute read time

Today’s issue: Basically a breakup letter to 'more' mentality especially when your friend has cancer and your mouth goes on strike.

There’s a voice in my head that likes to remind me I’m not doing enough. That the rate I’m moving I will be in the same position a year from now. In that anxiety I push harder and aster — but I second guess my direction.

This week was a hard lesson on our pursuit of ‘more’ indirectly from our mortality to taking care of our health in pursuit of goals.

It started on Thursday when a close friend was diagnosed with testicular cancer — especially following the loss of my mother in Russia. My initial reaction? Drop everything. Be there no questions asked. But days after I was hit with a medical issue — a debilitating mouth issue leaving me mute, bedridden, and in pain.

Suddenly ‘more’ became a confusing question. In trying to be ‘more’ of a good friend it came at the expense of my work, financial stability, and rituals that kept my depression at bay. Just to learn me being there after his radition was all he wanted.

Neglecting my health to TRY to be on laptop only worsened my situation. Painful nights and and drugged up rendered me useless and the ‘work’ I could manage wasn’t even a priority.

Out of curiousity: Do you need a tragedy or pain in order to make a change in your life? Or to stop pushing yourself for ‘better’ when it’s driven by fear t fear of not measuring up to some arbitrary standard we've set for ourselves. A race against an ever-shifting finish line.

These are the questions I’m asking myself. Seriously.

Because these experiences made me realize saying how easy saying ‘do less’ is than in practice. I’m still learning my way through but here’s what I’ve learned.

Seth Godin was onto something when he said, make a small list of thigns to do that day and intentionally don’t finish it. I’m okay learning not to do EVERYTHING — because not everything is a crisis that needs to be done that very moment. The struggle is figuring out which ones are the end of the world and which ones aren’t at the beginning.

Remembering “I’m doing my best” keeps me sane. Not to use this as a cop out to not improve because my best is NOT enough some days. It’s more giving me peace of mind while I’m figuring out what my health medium looks like and when to push myself.

Bottomline: The pressure to do ‘more’ seens to touch every corner of our lives. ‘Balance’ doesn’t always exist. Maybe a win is to end the day not pissed at ourselves in hopes one day (hopefully tomorrow) we learn to be better — for ourselves.

cool stuff

1. Video of the week: Just do yourself and watch this. I don’t 100% agree but his position on focusing on the few over the many hit a cord.

2. Article of the week:

3. Annoyance of the week: Maybe we are tired of seeing the same content because it’s literally stolen from someone else.