Resting is hard, have some links

Resting is hard, have some links

I’ve been staring at this screen for at least an hour now, trying to decide how to start and what to say.

The truth is, I’m in pain. I’ve been caught by another days-long headache—one that doesn’t respond to even my prescription painkillers, seems like. It’s been off and on for about a week and a half now, so I’ve been able to do some things on the off days. Since yesterday morning the headache has been decidedly On, and I’m spending most of my energy taking care of myself and not giving depression an opening to stir up bad feelings.

It’s agonising to not be able to do the things I want to do because my body won’t cooperate. I have ideas and plans and dreams to implement! Words to write, but I can’t seem to reach them behind the fog of pain. I’m just watching time pass me by and getting more anxious about the things that need to be done that I can’t get doing.

An aloe plant perched on a windowsill looking out to a street.

But you know what? This is my experience. I fight the mindset that experiences are less valid when not accompanied by productivity. I fight that I am defined by what I am able to do. Why do I say that to other people, and then let myself beat myself up when I have days that I can’t breathe or can’t think for pain? Why do I hold myself to a different standard?

Those are questions to let myself sit with for a while. For you, some links to articles that are helping me pass the time during this headache.

On Barrenness and Lying Fallow: Esme Wang talks about damaging cultural beliefs about productivity and doing too much and navigating it and chronic illness. My chronic illnesses are different from hers, but they still define my day to day life—and I still have trouble recognising and accepting that.

To even categorize these days is a kind of self-punishment, because I can’t control how they happen. There is no magic formula for having a “good day” versus a “bad day.” I have a chronic illness. It doesn’t answer to me; I answer to it.

Slow Cooking Your Dreams: I have an idea I’m working on with a friend, and I told myself at the very beginning that it’s okay if it takes six months—or longer—just for us to decide on a domain name and what kind of content we want and who we’ll have to contribute. But let my Tarot dreams unfold in their own time? Never. Until I read this post. If I’m disrupting capitalism, I need to disrupt this myth within myself that I have to be productive to be getting somewhere.

We’ve been sold on the idea that what we desire must happen immediately, and that the longer it takes to arrive, the more of a reason we have to feel bad.

This is the premise we have collectively hooked into: things taking long is a perfectly legitimate reason to feel bad about our lives.

5 Productivity Hacks You Need Now: Not that we need more productivity hacks. This link was chosen for this acknowledgement that’s said so rarely:

This obsession with productivity defeats the purpose of a productivity hack. The purpose of a productivity “hack” is not to produce more but rather, to get better at what you’re producing so you actually have time to have coffee with a friend or read a comic.

Enjoy the links, help distract me by talking to me on Twitter, and talk to you again soon!

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