Creating Enough Time

On extravagance, expectations and time.

Last month I shared about my word of the year, Extravagance. When January began, and I started a new job, after a six month relocation hiatus, I began really thinking about extravagance in relation to time.

Prior to moving to a new city, I worked full time as a library manager, a position where I experienced significant burnout due to poor support from local funders which led to frequent staff turnover due to a pay scale that was (and still is) far below living wage.

Oh and Covid.

And cancer.

And a total leadership transition.

And book bans and first amendments audits.

And library work can be quite stressful to begin with since we often serve patrons who are in or on the cusp of crisis.

For about a year, every time I heard my text notification, I would experience a huge adrenaline spike. Experience taught me that a crisis was always imminent. Everything was urgent all the time. At least once a week, often more, I would come home from work and climb directly into bed where I would remain for the evening. I loved my work but the culture of work in America is deadly. It certainly took its toll on me.

When we moved, I didn’t immediately look for work (which I realize is a position of great privilege). Once the boxes were unpacked, the youngest spawn sent off to school in another city, and the dust settled, I focused more on restoration than production. I baked. I walked. I wrote letters. I also 'wasted' a lot of time. I was rather aimless many days, which was also lovely. I healed. I rediscovered myself. Finally, I felt ready to re-enter community, but on very different terms.

I'm back at work now, part time only, doing all the library work I love and responsible for none of it outside my assigned tasks. I have at least one day off between shifts. It feels extravagant, like a gift I didn't know I needed, an opportunity to live a more relaxed and well-rounded way.

Despite the lovely working scenario I've painted here, I'm still feeling the creep of anxiety into my thoughts and actions. January was worse than I imagined politically and with everyone screaming "Do something! Do something now!" in response to the madness, the tyranny of the urgent and the narrative of imminent doom is dominating my days and attempting to rob me of sleep each night. I haven't been on anxiety medication for a little over a year, but I'm beginning to consider it.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at extravagance in relation to time as a way to resist all the urgency around me.

We all know time is finite, but we live in a system that tells us if we just juggle, organize and streamline, we can have it all. Work harder, work faster, make things, and people, work for us and everything will turn out ok. These are concepts ingrained in us from childhood, and they are lies. I really began to realize this a few years ago as part of my burnout recovery, but it's easy to forget these lessons when the louder narrative is the one we've always heard. I have new mantras about time which I am attempting to put into practice.

There is enough time

I'm learning to actively take a step back every day and assess: what is necessary; what is possible; and what is practical. Most of us have more expectations, whether from others or the more insidious ones we place on ourselves, than we can possibly begin, let alone complete, in a twenty-four hour period. Most mornings, I dump everything on a list in my journal and then look at it with the questions listed above. What is truly necessary? Professional responsibilities, caring for myself, maintaining social and professional relationships. These are necessary. What is possible? Daily chores, creative endeavors, reading projects. These are possible. What is practical? This is where I look at the list of things that made it through the necessary and possible screening and determine when, or if, they will occur throughout the day, leaving time in-between for dilly-dallying, daydreaming and general wastefulness. Usually I have to pull some items off the list for another day. So far, this is serving me well. I may never feel like everything is crossed off my list, but I can breathe again and stop beating myself up over all the things left undone. There is enough time. Eventually everything will make it to the list and be dealt with, or fall off the list as no longer important.

Rest and relaxation are a productive form of resistance.

I'm learning to put breaks, rest, and recreation in the necessary category of every day. Listen, I don’t owe the world the entire breadth and depth of my ability to produce. I am not a machine. I also cannot single-handedly change the course of current events. Facing these facts creates an elusive space of possibility where I can be a contributing and supportive member of my community, and also take a nap…without guilt. I can call my representatives, state my case, and put down the phone to do something else rather than doom scrolling to see what’s changed in the last five minutes. I can focus on the one or two community organizations that are most important to me, and trust that others will do the same for other worthy organizations, supporting each other rather than trying to support everything ourselves. I understand that so many issues are important right now, but as one person, I am allowed to choose where I believe my presence and support will have the most impact. Limiting myself in these ways isn’t easy, but it does create space and alleviate the constant guilt of ‘not doing enough.’ We’re all doing more than enough. What is necessary? What is possible? What is practical? Rest and relaxation are all three, and should be enjoyed without being ‘earned'.

For a far more in-depth exploration of this, I highly recommend Trisha Hershey’s Rest is Resistance. I read this December of last year and it has been invaluable to me in shaping my days.

Consistency matters more than effort

I have a terrible internal narrative which tells me if I can’t complete something to the extent that I can cross it off my list, then it isn’t worth the effort. When I allow this to be dominant message, I always feel the pressure of finite time, and when I follow it to it’s logical conclusion, my life becomes unbalanced. I exhaust myself in an effort to push through. Relationships, other responsibilities, and my own well-being can fall by the wayside, so that I’m always running to catch up to where I should be. As much as I might want them to be, most things in life aren’t one and done. Rather they require consistent attention and maintenance which, astonishingly, takes far less effort than ‘pushing through’ with better results and often more enjoyment. Whether it’s a professional project or a personal endeavor, if I apply the there is enough time narrative, I am better able to envision a consistently workable timeline which leaves time and energy for other things. I believe the old saying goes, slow and steady wins the race; consistency is more sustainable than perpetual urgent effort.

The process is the point

While writing this, I realized this concept has been evolving in my life for quite awhile. Eighteen months ago I wrote Hobbies are Saving my Life which is still true, but hobbies can also fall into the productivity trap if we believe the measure of a successful hobby is producing something to validate our effort. When the metric is how fast, how much or how perfect, we’re simply falling back on capitalist narrative that we’re meant to produce, preferably at a profit. I think about this a lot because I do firmly believe that people should be paid for the value of their work, but I also believe that sometimes our effort is for the sheer joy of the process. I love to paint with watercolors. The odds on my producing anything but my own enjoyment in return for my effort are not great, and yet, I keep on creating for the pleasure of the process. Perhaps this is the balance: if we, as a society, actually paid people for the value of our work, then there would be enough time and energy for the things we do for pure enjoyment, regardless of output. Obviously, this is still a concept in process, and perhaps shouldn’t have made it into publication yet, but if this is a conversation, then here is where I am on this point. Consistency matters even when the process is the point. These sorts of activities deserve room on our necessary lists. As a community we are better when there is space for both.

You may be wondering how all of this relates to extravagance. I believe releasing the flow of our lives to include work and play, consistency and spontaneity, discipline and margin is an extravagant use of our time, opening our lives to criticism of not doing enough, even from ourselves. The problem of allowing society to define what enough is rather than having the courage to decide that line for ourselves is that every individual has unique-to-them levels of capacity, and even those fluctuate from day today. There is no way to satisfactorily meet an arbitrary level of success, and yet, we’re still killing ourselves trying. When we remember to be kind to ourselves, to listen to our inner voice and our inner child, it becomes easier to define time and how we will use it for ourselves. Perhaps when we do, we’ll all get the nap we all desperately deserve.

Are you creating margin for rest and enjoyment in your life? What ways could you start today?