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Jan. 6th, 2025 11:00 am
We're in the final week of the Old Burrow! It's been really nice having the time and space to declutter before moving, and I'm actually looking forward to cleaning the old place once everything's out. I doubt we'll get our security deposit back at this point, but it'll be a nice way to say goodbye to the apartment and generate a sense of gratitude for the home we've made of it over the past ten years. It'll also be good practice for keeping up the new house, too.
The movers are scheduled to arrive this Saturday, so we're trying to have everything but the furniture out by then. It's been surprisingly straightforward so far, and we're nearly done with several rooms -- but it's always that last 10% that proves to be the messiest. There are so many little things we're not sure what to do with, or that just don't have a good home. I'm planning to make sure shit's organized a lot better in the new place so we know how many, say, travel-sized tubes of toothpaste we have or I know exactly where a certain tool or cleaner might be. Keeping things clean can be a chore when you don't know where anything is, or you have to fight about cleaning agents every time you get up the energy for it. I'm hoping I can erase that friction at the new place. If something needs to be clean, I go to the spot where the cleaners are kept, get a mop, rag, or broom, and get it clean. The less mental space I have to devote to something, the easier it is to just do it.
Anyway, that's the dream. I know myself enough to know that I'll take the easiest path I can, so if I really want to instill better habits I'll have to change my environment so that only THOSE habits are truly easy. I'm sure there'll be some trial and error, and I'll need to smooth out some rough edges with Snepperboo and Ratty, but that's OK. We're all trying to row in the same direction; we just have to agree on how to set our cadence.
I've been consumed by moving and video games for this first week of the New Year, which means I've fallen down a bit on reading and writing. I'm hoping to bundle that in to the routine this week -- at least one Pomodoro of each at some point through the day. That's in addition to...journaling, exercising, grooming and the rest.
I'm reading The Miracle of Mindfulness, and Thich Nhat Hanh shared this anecdote that really struck me. A new parent was visiting him, and they were walking about how hard it must be to find personal time with all the demands that entails. The new parent said that at first, yes, it felt like he was being squeezed out of his own life -- until he stopped thinking of the time he shared with his children and wife as "their" time. It's ALL his time, he realized, so when he's spending time helping his son with his homework it doesn't feel like time he's giving up to someone else. It's his time, given freely, to share with this person who means so much to him.
It's such a simple change in perspective, but it struck me as profound. I think I get a little testy with demands on my time -- like chores and whatnot -- because it feels like I don't have enough time or energy in the day to do what I want. Life is a constant battle where I have to carve out space for myself to recover or whatever. But that's not true! I always have more time than I think -- and a lot of it is honestly wasted searching for the next YouTube video or getting sucked into a Balatro run. At some point I had to sit down and take a look at how I was actually spending my time, and why I was so jealously guarding space I wasn't actually using to...push myself forward. It's kind of shitty to be snappy at folks who want to share time with me doing something productive just because I'd rather waste it.
And I get that sometimes I get too stressed out, or I genuinely need some time to kick back and do nothing. But...remember when I counted reading as a leisure activity? True story! It was something I did to wind down after work. Why does it feel like such a job now, or this big sacrifice of time to something I should be doing?
I think somewhere along the way I came to think of "leisure time" as "doing nothing, floating". All of the hobbies I used to have feel like work, maybe because we live in a world where "free time" means you're falling behind on your finances and anything you love doing HAS to be monetized. Writing is scary because I can't just write stories and share them; I have to expect some amount of payment for it if it's nay good. Reading isn't easy anymore because I'm always thinking about how the craft of it can be mined for improvement in my writing; or I'm thinking about how I should get back into writing reviews or reading different books. I'm never doing a thing simply to do a thing. Every hobby is somehow a means to an end.
But Thich Nhat Hanh shows us that ain't no way to live. In order to truly be enriched by whatever we're doing in the present moment, the activity must be the end in itself. In other words, we clean the dishes to clean the dishes -- not to HAVE clean dishes. Every action is its own pleasure, a choice of how I'm spending my time to build the best present I can.
It feels like I spend so much of my time running...either to get to the next thing, or away from whatever unpleasant feeling I'm having. It's been such a long time since I've just taken a breath to deal with what's in front of me. Maybe that's the way out of this anxiety cycle.
The movers are scheduled to arrive this Saturday, so we're trying to have everything but the furniture out by then. It's been surprisingly straightforward so far, and we're nearly done with several rooms -- but it's always that last 10% that proves to be the messiest. There are so many little things we're not sure what to do with, or that just don't have a good home. I'm planning to make sure shit's organized a lot better in the new place so we know how many, say, travel-sized tubes of toothpaste we have or I know exactly where a certain tool or cleaner might be. Keeping things clean can be a chore when you don't know where anything is, or you have to fight about cleaning agents every time you get up the energy for it. I'm hoping I can erase that friction at the new place. If something needs to be clean, I go to the spot where the cleaners are kept, get a mop, rag, or broom, and get it clean. The less mental space I have to devote to something, the easier it is to just do it.
Anyway, that's the dream. I know myself enough to know that I'll take the easiest path I can, so if I really want to instill better habits I'll have to change my environment so that only THOSE habits are truly easy. I'm sure there'll be some trial and error, and I'll need to smooth out some rough edges with Snepperboo and Ratty, but that's OK. We're all trying to row in the same direction; we just have to agree on how to set our cadence.
I've been consumed by moving and video games for this first week of the New Year, which means I've fallen down a bit on reading and writing. I'm hoping to bundle that in to the routine this week -- at least one Pomodoro of each at some point through the day. That's in addition to...journaling, exercising, grooming and the rest.
I'm reading The Miracle of Mindfulness, and Thich Nhat Hanh shared this anecdote that really struck me. A new parent was visiting him, and they were walking about how hard it must be to find personal time with all the demands that entails. The new parent said that at first, yes, it felt like he was being squeezed out of his own life -- until he stopped thinking of the time he shared with his children and wife as "their" time. It's ALL his time, he realized, so when he's spending time helping his son with his homework it doesn't feel like time he's giving up to someone else. It's his time, given freely, to share with this person who means so much to him.
It's such a simple change in perspective, but it struck me as profound. I think I get a little testy with demands on my time -- like chores and whatnot -- because it feels like I don't have enough time or energy in the day to do what I want. Life is a constant battle where I have to carve out space for myself to recover or whatever. But that's not true! I always have more time than I think -- and a lot of it is honestly wasted searching for the next YouTube video or getting sucked into a Balatro run. At some point I had to sit down and take a look at how I was actually spending my time, and why I was so jealously guarding space I wasn't actually using to...push myself forward. It's kind of shitty to be snappy at folks who want to share time with me doing something productive just because I'd rather waste it.
And I get that sometimes I get too stressed out, or I genuinely need some time to kick back and do nothing. But...remember when I counted reading as a leisure activity? True story! It was something I did to wind down after work. Why does it feel like such a job now, or this big sacrifice of time to something I should be doing?
I think somewhere along the way I came to think of "leisure time" as "doing nothing, floating". All of the hobbies I used to have feel like work, maybe because we live in a world where "free time" means you're falling behind on your finances and anything you love doing HAS to be monetized. Writing is scary because I can't just write stories and share them; I have to expect some amount of payment for it if it's nay good. Reading isn't easy anymore because I'm always thinking about how the craft of it can be mined for improvement in my writing; or I'm thinking about how I should get back into writing reviews or reading different books. I'm never doing a thing simply to do a thing. Every hobby is somehow a means to an end.
But Thich Nhat Hanh shows us that ain't no way to live. In order to truly be enriched by whatever we're doing in the present moment, the activity must be the end in itself. In other words, we clean the dishes to clean the dishes -- not to HAVE clean dishes. Every action is its own pleasure, a choice of how I'm spending my time to build the best present I can.
It feels like I spend so much of my time running...either to get to the next thing, or away from whatever unpleasant feeling I'm having. It's been such a long time since I've just taken a breath to deal with what's in front of me. Maybe that's the way out of this anxiety cycle.
