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John Machin's avatar

This is lovely. The child part of my mind, aka most of it, is sad about the loss of the ocean. And 'oversensitive, overwhelmed, overworked, overthinking overachiever,' THAT got to me. I'm not claiming the fifth, but the first four hit home. Worse, when I'm not overworked, in fact on occasions during lockdown when I found myself the very opposite, paradoxically the 'overwhelmed' factor ramped right up because I found myself unable to fill the unexpectedly free hours with anything meaningful. Which, I suspect, points more to a problem with what I believe is meaningful than anything else.

Namely, only work feels meaningful, as in paid employment-related stuff. Out of the blue, I got asked to help with someone else's project at work last week, and it made me happy. I said to myself, "See? All I need is to be involved, for my skills to be needed, that's not much to ask." This week, they ever-so-nicely said, don't need you any more, thanks though, and I felt dumped.

But why? It's only work, ffs; now I have more time to do what I want! But there's no escaping the conclusion: I value work way higher than I do my own aims. Because at work, there's the possibility of an Other; someone to affirm my worth, to say well done, and I'm terrible at saying that to myself.

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