I really relate to that. I also find it really hard to give myself permission to rest and unwind. There’s a lot of guilt in there for me about not being productive enough.

I had to start working on it when I burnt out hard earlier this year though.

It sounds to me like you already are doing plenty of things or planning to, so I’ll tell you something that was said to me by a therapist once:

It sounds like you’re looking at your self worth conditionally. You need to do X, then you’ll be Y. The thing is, that’s a journey with no end. You’ll always find something else you don’t have if you think of yourself this way.

You need to work on unconditional self worth. How can you give yourself grace on the days when you just sit around and watch YouTube videos? Are you really worthless if you never learn an instrument?

This may not vibe with you, but one technique I’ve been told is to think of your child self. Imagine this little girl or boy you used to be standing in front of you. They feel horrible because they haven’t done this or that. Would you chastise them for it? Or would you pick them up and give them a hug? They’re trying, and that’s what matters, even if they don’t get exactly where they want in the end.

So to sum it up, your self worth is conditional, and you need to find ways to treat yourself well more unconditionally. The more you can do that, the more confident you’ll feel, regardless of what else is happening in life.

Best of luck with this. I have struggled with similar things and still do sometimes. It takes work to change your thinking, and it won’t be linear gains.

I don’t think there is a “should” honestly. People only have a certain capacity for strife. Like you said we need to unwind, feel loved, have moments of happiness, even in chaos. I see that as very human, and it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive with actions to improve the world, either.

Thanks for sharing!

A corner near where I live often has cats sitting out. My wife and I love to count how many there are each time 😺

I like this one a lot, but it’s not better or worse, I just like this kinda spooky look more

I’m pretty sure they’re in liquidation mode right now. Everything at Microsoft is being sacrificed on the altar of AI

Exactly!

Another thing I read this reminds me of was about the fall of Rome. It was a piece by a historian and they said for people on the outskirts of the empire, the way they experienced the fall of Rome was that no one came to fix the bridge one day. In other words, the collapse was not some far reaching destructive force. It was felt most intensely in the major government centers.

I don’t know if it’s the point of this piece, but this speaks to me a little. I’ve found one of the most bizarre things about living through times of struggle or danger is how isolated that danger can be. There can be armed conflict happening, and a few blocks away there can be no signs of it.

I haven’t lives through war, but I felt some of this during the pandemic quarantine. I lived very close to a major civil disturbance at the time, and you wouldn’t even know it if you didn’t go looking for it. Go the other direction and it was business as usual.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

I will always choose to read stupidly spelled product or brand names exactly as written.