Equilibrium

The word I chose to represent how I live this year was “equilibrium”. At the back end of last year, I found myself continually pushing too hard on individual projects, to the detriment of all else (hello monotropism). Sewing dresses for parties on a deadline, learning D&D and writing adventures from scratch (!) at short notice, that sort of thing. I’d also started a new role at work that was using more of my brainpower, so it was all getting a bit much.

This year, I decided to allow myself to spread my efforts across my projects more thinly, in favour of a better balance. And I specifically chose the world “equilibrium” rather than “balance”, because you can balance a spoon on your nose, but that’s not a particularly sustainable way to live. “Equilibrium” is less precarious, and more self-correcting.

The upshot of living like this is that I don’t feel (as) mentally exhausted. But surprisingly, I’m also actually finishing more projects, because I’ve allowed myself to start things without the burden of finishing them. By not burning myself out with single-minded focus, I’m generally ending up with more (mental) energy. Doing a little bit, but more often, and then switching to something else is working pretty well for me.

Some of the things I’ve been spending my creative energies on this year:

  • Sewing, of course
  • Mending, too (including finishing unfinished projects that had waited for years)
  • Knitting, of course
  • Tinkering with this website, of course (including redoing the styles)
  • Baking bread (both from commercial yeast and my sourdough starter)
  • Baking sweet things, like amaretti biscuits on a whim
  • Expanding my cooking repertoire (I’m gathering a big bank of weeknight-friendly recipes)
  • Developing a video game concept
  • Historical research to support the above concept
  • Learning game development (I’ve only dipped my toe in so far)

All these things are trucking along at a steady, manageable pace. Mostly, anyway. It’s in my nature to get sucked into rabbit holes for weeks, but I’m trying to make a conscious effort to stop myself when I can feel this happening. Then I think about something else for a while.

Half-ass ten things

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of Ron Swanson’s advice to Leslie Knope at his cabin:

“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”

And I tried that for years. It seemed like a great maxim. But different brains work in different ways. Whole-assing one thing is my danger zone, because I really truly will go all in. It’s taken me nearly 4 decades to figure out that to be the best version of myself, I need to reign myself in, not push myself harder. Half-ass ten things.