“As candy comes down a conveyor belt, Lucy and Ethel must wrap each piece of chocolate in paper and place it back on the conveyor. Their boss is a humorless drill sergeant of a manager with no tolerance for mistakes. The dour supervisor warns that if even a single piece of unwrapped candy gets past them, they’ll both be fired.”
Thomas J. Lee, Editor and Publisher, Minding Gaps
I’m in the kitchen, making my first flourless chocolate torte as a valentine for my sweetie. Okay, it just happens to be my favorite dessert. Regardless, I’ve taken a break from working on our finances to be creative. But as I measure and mix the ingredients, I can feel myself breathing a little fast, rushing, so I can squeeze this moment of fun into my day.
I’m “squeezing” a moment of fun into my day? Give me a break. I know better, and yet, here I am, in bad-habit replay mode.
I stop. I slow my breathing and ponder where the angst is coming from.
Oh, of course. The Productivity Queen. This humorless drill sergeant controls the production line in my head, and she’s making sure all the other things on my heavy-laden to-do list are calling—more like yelling—to me, shortchanging the joy of the baking process.
I take a deep breath and call a halt to her chatter in my head, and on the out-breath I talk myself down off the Ledge of Self Importance. I. Let. Go. The production plates I’ve kept spinning in the air cease their rapid movement and disappear, and a momentary calm descends on me. The crash I anticipated simply doesn’t happen.
If this were my last day, I ask myself, would I create the cake or stress over financial data entry? The bigger picture comes into focus and perspective returns. Everything, EVERYTHING else can wait, because guess what? It is waiting. It will get its turn.
My inner dour supervisor retreats to her corner and pouts. But she’ll just have to get a life; I’m busy enjoying mine.
What voice inside your head needs to be addressed, questioned and perspectified? Isn’t that a cool word: perspectified? I just made it up. After all, I’m in a major creative streak these days.
I’ve been waking up tired the last few days and my drill sergeant has been giving me hell for not being able to get productive sooner in the day. I tell him it’s “not my fault” but that doesn’t carry any weight at all. He yells even louder and soon I feel it must be my fault. I got to bed too late. My sleeping pill is too strong even though I’m taking half a dose. I don’t sleep well. I have to get up too often to answer nature’s call.
The fact that I often work till 9 p.m. or later is not figured into this conversation. Nor is the fact that I’ve had forty years of sleeping issues. Clearly I need to find out what’s causing this early morning droop. (Is that a word? If not, it should be as it describes the last few hours perfectly.) However I had two calls from clients in the last two hours and handled them well. So my “fake it factor” is still working.
Your post allowed me to get down what I’m feeling and give myself a break. I’ll get done as much as I CAN get done today and that will be enough. And I’m going to find a way to have some fun and help one other person before I go to bed. And, no, I don’t have to be the most productive person on the planet. I have to be the most productive me on Turkey Ridge Court.
Jim Comer, you are too funny. Thank God you were born.