I come from a family of do-ers. I also come from a long line of women with strong minds and even stronger hearts who are self-reliant and take on big things that sometimes, others think they shouldn’t be allowed to do.
My grandmother was the first in our family to earn more money than her husband. My mother was the first to move away and see the other side of the world. I am the first to live and work in another language and earn a Master’s degree. I am so proud of us for all we do and cannot wait to see what my daughter is capable of.
But the dark side of this beautiful light carried by the women in my family is that we often push ourselves harder than anyone really needs to be pushed. We raise the bar before we’ve even gotten out of bed in the morning.
i measure my self-worth
by how productive i've been
but no matter
how hard i work
i still feel inadequate
- productivity guilt
- Rupi Kaur from home body, p. 86
For the past few years, I’ve set a reading goal for myself. Not because I need encouragement to read more, but because I can’t just have a hobby; I have to win the hobby. I take the number of books I read the previous year and add one to make my goal for the following year. This year, my goal is 24 books.
Do-ers love goals like this because they’re quantifiable. There’s an unequivocal moment when the goal is accomplished and the Wonder-Woman-hell-yes-hair-toss-I-deserve-a-donut feelings can start. But these kinds of goals can also get me so laser-focused on the number at the end, that I forget the value of the journey itself; the reason I set the goal in the first place.
This is compounded by the maternal legacy that made me. We don’t always know where the line is between pushing the boundary because it raises us all up and doing so much that we are really just losing ourselves in a to-do list. The women in my family don’t often get to just be the amazing women they are because of this fear that if we stop doing then we’ll stop being amazing.
This blog has been so valuable to me because writing it allows me to slow down and appreciate the present moment each book happened inside of. It’s been a key part of realizing that trying to live under an avalanche of accomplishment is not always positive. Being busy is not what makes me amazing.
I am not my to-do list!
But since my last post, I’ve admittedly lost sight of that truth. I’ve been panic-reading in order to meet my 24-book goal and stressing myself out too much to write. Meanwhile, every single title I’ve picked up has been laced with deeply unsubtle messages that I’m doing it wrong:
your rushing is
suffocating the masterpieces
baking inside you
- Rupi Kaur from home body, p. 118
I’ve been bringing the wrong energy to my life and it’s stifling my most joyful qualities; my creativity, my playfulness, my wild.
Guess what?
What?
You can’t schedule in your wild.
Are you sure?
Yes.
But, Wednesday is looking pretty open. Wild Wednesday!
No.
But-
No.
It just shows up when you’re not doing anything else. Like the books that carry all the messages you need to hear but didn’t know to look for because you were trying to consume their page-numbers like a professional eater swallows hot dogs.
After a year of reading and writing and learning through this blog; becoming and unbecoming with each post, I have decided that we cannot know who we are going to be more than two books away from who we are now.
i will never have
this version of me again
let me slow down
and be with her
- always evolving
- Rupi Kaur from home body, p. 181
Knowing that changes everything about how I chose to live now. So, to truly honor all the wisdom I’ve absorbed and all the people I’ve had the joy and fear and pride and sadness of being this year, I am breaking from the circadian rhythm of my ancestors and am going to go right ahead and fall short of my goal this year.
This will be the last post I write and the last book I finish in 2020. (It’s #20. Kinda poetic, no?)
I forgive myself for not writing about every single book that touched my life this year and I give myself permission to read less than 24 amazing books. I have done enough.
I am enough.
i will be searching for answers my whole life
not because i'm a half-formed thing
but because i'm brilliant enough to keep growing
- Rupi Kaur from home body, p. 114
See you next year.
– Sydney
Books & References
home body by Rupi Kaur (2020)