Just like a morning like this, some weeks ago. I decided to list everything I did that particular week. Then I drew a line. Some things I did willingly and chose, and other things I also did to avoid disappointment. I discovered that on that list, the guilt aspect was significantly long. Because what I wrote on the guilt side was not a small thing at all. Probably a full day.
Some commitments took a lot of real energy and did not allow me to actually touch the things I cared about, because they were sitting right at the bottom of the list I never reached.
After doing that that morning, it reorganized something in my thinking very quickly. Because all the things I did from guilt fell on the same line, and they had just one thing in common. They were done out of urgency that did not belong to me.
And I discovered that I did those things because I was driven by someone else's expectation clock. Some requests could have simply waited for family. The group that needed me to be actively present. Some work that might lead to visible tension if I say no. Yes, they seem to be very urgent, but none of those things actually fit in the direction I was trying to grow and build up.
There was no deadline attached to the things I said were genuinely important to me. And I had no one to check up on me to actually ask me why I had decided not to work on those things. And I guess because of that too, the silence I received made them get easily delayed. And I actually delayed those things for a very long time because I was busy doing things that were scheduled for other people's comfort, not mine.
Thank you for reading.
Images created by Gemini AI