There's always enough time for the right work
For when you're feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and out of time.
Last week, I shifted gears from sharing travel stories about Nashville to writing newsletter ruminations about “Small is all,” one of the principles from adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy.
With the Nashville school shooting and political trouble in the capitol there, I’ve decided to continue with the Emergent Strategy theme because, let’s be honest, when things get heavy, it’s good to look for the helpers — and the things that help us.
A few days ago, I read about the eight art therapists from Austin who drive to Uvalde three times a month to lead mosaic art nights that double as group therapy sessions for people in this community still reeling from the terrible school shooting last year.
It’s amazing to think about these therapists, who surely have busy lives and busy practices, would commit to such a large community wellness project in a town that is not their own.
Then I remembered, “There is always enough time for the right work,” the third of those principles from my favorite futurist, who is an absolutely must-follow human on Instagram.
There is always enough time for the right work.
Enough time for the right work.
What is enough and what is right? That’s a question I think about as I spend my days, writing, parenting, Zooming, dog walking, connecting with people about their ancestors, delivering Meals on Wheels, taking my kids to cool places.
It all feels like work and it all feels like life.
This spring, I’ve also added the jobs of wedding planner and travel agent to my job title. Starting later this month, we’ll host a wedding and, in May, embark on a familymoon, two once-in-a-lifetime events in a six-week span.
As these Big Days get closer, my to-do list gets longer, no matter how much I do, and, if I’m not careful, I can slip into an “I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS” panic.
I make last-minute bridal decisions, only to realize how many more I still have to make. I finish one work project and play catch-up on the next. I rake up all the leaves, only to see more leaves. I solve one technology problem and then spend three months trying to reset my kid’s iCloud.
“Time is what keeps everything from happening at once,” author Ray Cummings wrote once.
One Frank Curry would add: “And money is how we measure it.”
Work means something different to all of us. Is it what we do to make money? Is it what we do to contribute to society? Is it how we derive our worth?
Most of us juggle a mix of traditional work (from retail to remote desk jobs) and domestic duties, as well as parenting, parent caregiving, spiritual/church/group activities and what I might call tending your emotional community support, those phone calls with friends who need a check-in (and those times when you are the one making the call).
But what if all of it was work? The boring stuff, the money-making stuff, the sweat labor stuff. Even the fun stuff. Let’s be honest, hosting a party is a lot of work. Being an authentic human being in conversation, that takes work, but it’s not something you can bill for.
Loading the dishwasher, spinning on the stationary bike at the YMCA or stopping by the nursing home for a game of bingo with Aunt Rose. Work.
Therapy, church, planning a vacation and going on vacation. Sounds like a lot of work to me.
So, if everything is work, how on earth are we supposed to know when we’ve done enough work in a day? Or a year? Or a lifetime?
In her book, brown points to the cooperative work of ants, where society is based on individual ants that depend on other ants doing their part, all in unique ways.
But unlike ants, we are feeling, learning, creative humans who sometimes find our hours occupied by work that, if we’re not careful, has no sense of internal satisfaction or of collective effort.
Stagnation and burnout, brown says, come from when we deny “our longings and our skills.”
Our longings.
Like bell hooks and Audre Lorde, brown always brings it back to pleasure and desire, and paying attention to what is happening in our swarm.
What does that look like?
In a murmuration/shoal/swarm, each creature is tuned in to its neighbors, the creatures right around it in the formation. This might be the birds on either side, or the six fish in each direction. There is a right relationship, a right distance between them — too close and they crash, too far away and they can’t feel the micro-adaptations of the other bodies. Each creature is shifting direction, speed, and proximity based on the information of the other creatures’ bodies…
In this way thousands of birds or fish or bees can move together, each empowered with basic rules and a vision to live. Imagine our movements cultivating this type of trust and depth with each other, having strategic flocking in our playbooks.
She continues:
Adaptation reduces exhaustion. No one bears the burden alone of figuring out the next move and muscling towards it. There is an efficiency at play — is something not working? Stop. Change. If something is working, keep doing it — learning and innovating as you go.
No one bears the burden alone.
We have the capacity for intentional adaptation in our every lives, as we do our everyday work, from writing slides to writing legislation.
And remember, if rest is as important as productivity, then eating lunch, or taking a walk, or meeting a friend for coffee, is as much “work” as the paid “work” that pays the bills.
It’s almost wedding time, so if I’m quiet over the next week or so, you’ll know why.
But I also created this space so it is available to write what I feel moved to write.
And when.
So, I’ll be back soon, with another dispatch of The Feminist Kitchen, where we look at the ever-changing life all around us with open arms.
Thank you so much for your support.
Addie
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So, thanks, friends!