Between my own sense of panic and the culture I grew up in, I have no clear concept of what “accomplishment” looks like.
Meaning: when is enough, enough? When can you reach the point of the day and say, “I have done what I needed to do”?
I’m not sure I’ve ever reached that point. I don’t have any idea of what that would look like, or feel like. Whether I was highly productive or not, I judge my regular daily accomplishments as “not enough” and am fraught with anxiety accordingly.
In the culture I grew up in, over-achieving is a valid goal –a lifestyle choice, even. Over-achievement and workaholism are considered necessary personality traits for any kind of success. People who are not busy from the time they wake up until they go to bed are not maximizing their potential! What a tragedy!
Not that this was the mentality of my own parents, no, but due to other aspects of my childhood and young adulthood, I developed a very desperate mindset of “must do something to improve my life!”
The result of these colliding principles is I can pile up my days with a laundry list of “to-do” activities, accomplish all of them, and then sit there wondering what I should do next.
Honestly, I don’t think of myself as a workaholic, I do far too much goofing off to claim that title, but I have aspirations and I do believe I have high expectations.
Or do I?
I don’t think I accomplish a lot. Other people tell me I do, but is their basis of measurement realistic? Is mine unrealistic? What is the barometer of “productivity”?
It’s easy to count up hours, which is the usual method for noting whether a person has done enough work for the day to count as productive. But for me, personally, I don’t factor in the 50 hours a week devoted to my day!job (meaning, time on the clock + commuting) towards my goals. That’s just incidental busy work, necessary to pay the bills. Productivity is measured by the number of words I have written, the amount of text I have edited, how much time I spent drawing, and other sundry things like website management and networking.
So, on a day to day basis, I’m actually…not very productive.
Which is frustrating because I have goals, and I am determined to succeed at what I do, but I’m not going to get there by not doing things I need to do because I’m tired. Accomplishment comes irregularly.
It’s endlessly frustrating, but I try not to complain about it too much because, after all, my life is 1000% percent better than where it was 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, and I am grateful for that.
But the lack of productivity chafes me, and even when I am (arguably) productive, it’s just…never enough.
*sigh*
