I feel the multiple list so much, David. 😆 Hope you manage to ignore them for a bit - or maybe get super rebellious and delete on (or ALL?!) of them and see what happens. 👀
I feel this so strongly and it has been my 'normal', internalised attitude for so long that I've only recently even recognised it as being something I should address! Thank you for the permission, I will now set aside my to-do list for the afternoon and relax in my favourite chair with a hot tea and maybe a couple of rows of crochet 😀
It's just so ingrained in our culture now, isn't it? Glad you're taking the time back for yourself to do what you really want to - sounds like a perfect afternoon, Ali! ❤️
Totally. Although I think mine is also internalised from childhood, as my father was always rushing about doing DIY and other jobs at the weekend and he had a certain way of bustling through a room that you were sitting in with an air of 'look at me, I'm busy, why aren't you busy?!'
It’s strange how guilty we can feel over something like intentionally relaxing- great read and a great reminder to give myself permission to slow down today ( ****putting away the list….***)
Isn't it weird? I think it just seems so embedded in our society now especially with so many images/videos of everyone else doing doing doing (even if they're not really and it was a week ago when they did the thing the just posted about today from the sofa) there's so much pressure to always be "on". Glad that we're all trying to put the lists away - even just for a little while!
“A man's work is from sun[rise] to sun[set] but a woman's work is never done.” This rhyme was written in the late 18th or early 19th century, before most women worked outside the home. Once we took jobs outside the home, our work inside the home did not go away. Society’s expectation is for us to do all the things. Add the puritan work ethic to that and you have women who are unable to relax. I’m one. “After I finish this task, I’ll do something for me.” It doesn’t happen, although I’m getting better at letting chores languish. I still feel guilty about it, though.
“We don’t have to finish everything else before we choose to do something relaxing because nothing is ever really finished.” Such an important reminder. Thank you. I inherited my mom’s anxious sense that there is never enough time. When I was young, she put a broken clock above the kitchen sink and wrote below it “I have enough time.” I say this mantra throughout my days as an antidote to those endless lists, and my cells respond with easy delight.
Curiosity did me in as a kid. I never saw the point of mandated naps in preschool. I was and still am too curious. In this case, I was curious about what the teacher was doing, snipping concentric layers of construction paper glued one atop the other in the shape of a rainbow-edged heart. I was supposed to be napping, but how could I? I was enthralled by what she was doing over there in the corner, how she was doing it, using scissors and a glue stick, and why. What WAS she doing? Making a prize rainbow heart for the best napper. Who was the best napper? The one who had the most ghost stickers collected on an otherwise black-branched, construction paper tree glued to a sheet of 8.5x11" orange background taped to the wall. My tree: utterly barren.
Loved this and definitely need to heed such advice. Too many lists. Too few periods of real r n r. Thanks for this - I'll share a link to it with my readers on my Sunday round up.
This resonates strongly with me. I live by lists (my Reminders app has 15 different lists 🙈), and yes, I feel guilty if I haven’t ticked them all off!
I feel the multiple list so much, David. 😆 Hope you manage to ignore them for a bit - or maybe get super rebellious and delete on (or ALL?!) of them and see what happens. 👀
😮😂
🕺
Resonated with this so much Charlene!! Still finding my way out of it, but this reminder that it can be really simple is a good boost 🥰
It's a daily struggle for me too, Lauren - sometimes think I'm nailing it then forget all over again and have a thousand To Do lists! 😆
Haha yes -sounds familiar :D
I feel this so strongly and it has been my 'normal', internalised attitude for so long that I've only recently even recognised it as being something I should address! Thank you for the permission, I will now set aside my to-do list for the afternoon and relax in my favourite chair with a hot tea and maybe a couple of rows of crochet 😀
It's just so ingrained in our culture now, isn't it? Glad you're taking the time back for yourself to do what you really want to - sounds like a perfect afternoon, Ali! ❤️
Totally. Although I think mine is also internalised from childhood, as my father was always rushing about doing DIY and other jobs at the weekend and he had a certain way of bustling through a room that you were sitting in with an air of 'look at me, I'm busy, why aren't you busy?!'
It’s strange how guilty we can feel over something like intentionally relaxing- great read and a great reminder to give myself permission to slow down today ( ****putting away the list….***)
Isn't it weird? I think it just seems so embedded in our society now especially with so many images/videos of everyone else doing doing doing (even if they're not really and it was a week ago when they did the thing the just posted about today from the sofa) there's so much pressure to always be "on". Glad that we're all trying to put the lists away - even just for a little while!
“A man's work is from sun[rise] to sun[set] but a woman's work is never done.” This rhyme was written in the late 18th or early 19th century, before most women worked outside the home. Once we took jobs outside the home, our work inside the home did not go away. Society’s expectation is for us to do all the things. Add the puritan work ethic to that and you have women who are unable to relax. I’m one. “After I finish this task, I’ll do something for me.” It doesn’t happen, although I’m getting better at letting chores languish. I still feel guilty about it, though.
So true, even when I think I'll just relax, I have to be 'doing' something! Which is fine if its knitting or reading, too often find myself scrolling.
“We don’t have to finish everything else before we choose to do something relaxing because nothing is ever really finished.” Such an important reminder. Thank you. I inherited my mom’s anxious sense that there is never enough time. When I was young, she put a broken clock above the kitchen sink and wrote below it “I have enough time.” I say this mantra throughout my days as an antidote to those endless lists, and my cells respond with easy delight.
This is so me.... 🙈
Curiosity did me in as a kid. I never saw the point of mandated naps in preschool. I was and still am too curious. In this case, I was curious about what the teacher was doing, snipping concentric layers of construction paper glued one atop the other in the shape of a rainbow-edged heart. I was supposed to be napping, but how could I? I was enthralled by what she was doing over there in the corner, how she was doing it, using scissors and a glue stick, and why. What WAS she doing? Making a prize rainbow heart for the best napper. Who was the best napper? The one who had the most ghost stickers collected on an otherwise black-branched, construction paper tree glued to a sheet of 8.5x11" orange background taped to the wall. My tree: utterly barren.
Loved this and definitely need to heed such advice. Too many lists. Too few periods of real r n r. Thanks for this - I'll share a link to it with my readers on my Sunday round up.