When Did Doing Become Being?

How optimization culture confuses motion for progress.

I am super organized and I get shit done. Color-coded, prioritized, goals broken down into manageable projects and  tasks... I check off box after box, the satisfaction of progress rallies me forward. But at the beginning of last week, I took 2  days off, and I felt guilty and let’s face it, they weren’t entirely off. But then on Friday, when I couldn’t point to anything that felt like real accomplishments, I felt guilty all over again. I know there’s a slow build and you see your results eventually, but it still kind of crushed me to see… essentially nothing and then I felt essentially empty. 

I know this is a false equation and I can’t be the only one who struggles with this aspect of identity as a creative. We really do tether our identity to output. I see it in myself all the time. In fact, what directly spurred this essay was when I caught myself –just a few minutes before I started writing–thinking, “Whew, yay! Today was a good writing day.” Great, right? But that was so quickly …