Kill the Guilt Complex.

How do you start something? Start anything?

The beginning of something is always the hardest, it seems. Momentum hasn’t been built yet, structure hasn’t been defined.  Direction is still a murky cloud somewhere off in the distance.

I returned back from the trip and tried to put my life back together.  Started working, got my car, started to actually not just break even on my bills, but it hasn’t been easy, and I still haven’t found a place to live.  And there’s also been the question of what do I want my life to look like?

I know for one thing I didn’t expect it to be this hard.  But who am I kidding?  I should expect trying to reset my life to be a little complicated.

And how do I translate what I learned in the rural lands of another country to my urban lifestyle here in Denver, Colorado?  I experienced something over there, and in some ways it stayed over there.  It didn’t translate into my life here, and it won’t without some effort.

One thing I have noticed since getting back is just how much stuff there is in the city.  There are so many options, so many movements to get involved in.  One of my favorite things about being in the country was seeing just a few people, getting involved in just a few things, and reducing my own stimuli.  For some reason we (and I) feel like being simplified is bad, even WITH the current movement toward simple lifestyles.  We think minimizing our involvement, interests, and skills makes us less interesting and less valuable.  But maximizing our time and efforts has all sorts of negative implications on our mental health, relationships and general quality of life.

I told myself that when I got back I’d work hard at picking the few things I really wanted to invest in and keep things a little more simple.  It’s not been easy with so many interesting activities and so many people I had invested in before I left.

But the fact is that I just don’t have that much mental energy to give.  Getting stretched and pulled in a billion different directions get’s overwhelming and tiring, and I’m not sure I want to do it anymore.  There’s something abnormal about stretching yourself out that much.  Sometimes I forget how much time there is in a day and the energy I have to invest is somewhat limited and that my sanity actually depends on not moving too quickly.  And yet I feel, and have heard other people say that they feel so much guilt about not doing enough.  About sitting down and resting.  I must be lazy if I sit and do something for the sheer enjoyment of it.  I’m not being productive enough, clearly.

It makes me think of the press created around the new Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer and her few week maternity leave.  She is praised for being a woman who has successfully “maintained” her womanhood and succeeded in a male dominated world, but at what cost?  All gender issues aside, what kind of people do we become when this is our standard and our expectation?  What happens to our families and our relationships when we kill our personal lives for the sake of profits?  What is this doing to our culture and our general mental health?  To be fair part of me is cheering her on as well as shaking my head.  There’s a lot of pressure on her to succeed and prove that she is capable of running Yahoo! in a world where we expect a person to dedicate their lives to their career.  But my point is that the problem is bigger than just her decision, it’s that we culturally cornered Marissa Mayer into the importance of the bottom line.   Maximum profit has become such an ingrained value in our culture that ultimately she had no other choice.  The impact on our families, relationships and communities becomes a secondary issue when we function on a bottom line value system.   But it’s killing us.

I’m the kind of person who loves feeling productive.  I love the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal and creating a project, and the excitement of the next adventure, so this is hard for me.  But I can and I actually need to find a way to meet these desires and needs  without needing to over do it and cluttering my life.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking personal time, with relaxing and not over doing it at even at the apparent price of making ourselves a little less productive, interesting and “cool.”  That’s something I miss about the country.  It’s a little more O.K. to have a rhythm of work and rest, of minimal activities and fewer but deeper relationships.

Kill the guilt complex.  It’s good for you.