Opening up the timeline
Getting beyond narratives and nurturing holistic thinking
I’ve been thinking a lot this morning about the phrase: "a previous you really wanted to be where you are now."
I can’t remember exactly where I saw this recently but feel like it was probably a social media post, or maybe a reel, about happiness or gratitude… At the time I just kind of shrugged it off; I’ve been having a kinda tough few months and cycling in and out of some negative thinking so it wasn’t a vibe that hit home.
But it’s been percolating this morning as I’ve been at the boulder gym making my way through a bunch of climbs and then my workout. Along with some thoughts about the narratives surrounding productivity and progress, how challenging life feels at the moment, and how all this ties in together.
I think productivity and progress often feel like they should go hand in hand, one should naturally lead to the other, but it’s more complex than that and the oversimplification can be harmful.
In fact I think most of the narratives around productivity and progress are harmful, particularly if you’re neurodivergent, but probably for neurotypicals too. There’s the constant drive to ‘be productive’, the need to progress, the myth that if you just try harder, keep pushing through, streamline your productivity, then the big reward is just around the corner. There’s a whole conversation here too, around how capitalist narratives have tied self-worth to productivity, but I don’t want to get into now cos we’ll be here all day… Suffice it to say we get caught up in these narratives and it’s largely a false economy, we spend our time and money and energy constantly trying to get somewhere that isn’t where we are, and run ourselves into the ground in the process.
And I think in focusing too hard on one particular kind of progress, i.e. wealth acquisition, career etc, there’s the potential to actually miss all the other ways progress can show up in our lives.
I’m trying to build a career in the arts, this is what I want to do with my life.
I’m struggling to achieve this, therefore I’m failing.
This is my kind of thinking: narrow, black and white, single focus.
But life is more nuanced than that, and requires more complex thinking.
I’m trying to build a career in the arts, and I’m also trying to improve my personal poetic practice, look after my mental health, improve my climbing, sustain myself financially, look after my physical health and condition my body for an active job, care for myself emotionally, and nurture the social and play aspects of my life. Existence is multi-faceted; people are multi-faceted.
And progress is multi-faceted.
This is more holistic thinking, looking at the bigger picture and seeing how everything connects… this is what I’m trying to teach myself.
I’m a sucker for looking at the one thing and hanging my entire definition of success or failure from it. But then, although I have a pre-req for this kind of thinking (it’s common in neurodivergents) I don’t think that’s only me… that mindset is encouraged by our social narratives around productivity and progress.
There’s been a lot these past few months that hasn’t gone my way, that feels like set backs. Missed application and submission deadlines, rejections from places I have managed to submit to, and recently a job in the arts sector which would have been an absolute game changer but for which I didn’t even get an interview. It’s gutting; neurodivergent burnout and financial strain are my constant companions, there’s nothing wrong with climbing instructing itself but for me as an autistic person the level of social interaction - particularly with high energy children - that it requires is a high tax on my capacity; this job would have meant I could swap out two days of instructing for two days working in an arts context - less intense environment, a job that feels like I’m heading in the right direction… what a dream!
Wanna hear another? I'm currently applying for some funding to expand my creative practice into lino printing, something I’ve wanted to do for absolutely ages but remains a dream because I don’t have the time for the practice and I don’t have the money for the materials. Just the thought of actually getting this funding and being able to concentrate on artistic development… oh my!
These potential futures are gorgeous and once I start thinking about them it’s so easy to get caught up in in this bubble of hope, then when the bubble bursts (as it so often does because, let’s face it, this is the arts sector and everyone’s after the same few jobs/opportunities/funding etc) it can feel devastating to land back in the same old difficult life that feels like a constant grind with little payoff.
And it is difficult, and it is a grind, because that’s what happens when you want to build something but still need to meet societal/financial demands and you’re neurodivergent. And I think the idea of the ‘grind’ has also been romanticised, turned into something we’re encouraged to take some kind of pride in when really it’s bad for our bodies, bad for our mental health, and bad for our overall wellbeing. Is this a joyful way to live? Exhausted and always running to the next task? I don’t want to grind.
When I first got into climbing just over 10 years ago I sucked at it. I was 21, I wasn’t into fitness, and I’d spent the previous seven years partying hard and dealing with anorexia. I was not strong and my body didn’t have a foundation for building upper body strength. For those first couple years I was the weakest climber everywhere; I wished and prayed to just be able to break into the 6’s… if I could just climb 6a! Then I climbed 6a, but I was still the weakest climber and I still found it really stressful; if I could just climb 6b then I’d be strong, part of the crew, etc. The I climbed 6b, 6c… if I could just break into the 7’s! All these years later and my project grade is 7b+ and I still catch myself berating myself at the wall for not being strong enough, not being good enough, not climbing hard enough. What’s happening? I’m constantly raising my own bar, which in itself isn’t a bad thing if I want to ‘progress’ which I do, but the thing that needs to go hand in hand with the bar raising? Recognition. Recognising how far I’ve come, the progress I’ve already made. Why is it so easy to shrug that off?
This morning I've been thinking about the last few months, the things I’ve wanted and haven’t got, the energy I put into growing this Stack and writing poems and turning up at work for all my shifts, and that phrase, "a previous you really wanted to be where you are now" kept coming back to me as I was doing my workout, and I started thinking: “at what point do I stand back and look at the progress I have made?”
Realistically I’m still very, very far away from the idealised life with it’s little house in the countryside and several books of published poetry and an income from writing that means I can choose when and how much I undertake socially demanding work (and yes there’s a whole other conversation here about how the journey is the destination, but I’m not going to get into that now). But where did me of a few years ago want to be?
She wanted a job, any job that meant she could pay the bills; she wanted to work in a climbing wall because she thought it would be fun and didn’t know then that she’s AuDHD and a socially demanding role would take it’s toll; she wanted to get into route-setting; she wanted to publish more poems; to get a first in her undergrad and get on to an MFA; to move out of a terrible, terrible house-share that made her miserable; she wanted a car; she was lonely socially and romantically; she wanted to be able to climb 7b; she wanted to get out into the poetry scene and start building a career…
I work at a wall, I route set, I climb 7b, I’ve had a few more poems published, I got a first in my undergrad, I’m doing an MFA, I live in a friendly house-share in a better part of town, I have some great friends who I see here and there, I have a wonderful and supportive partner who’s caring and kind and aware of my capacities and boundaries and meets me where I'm at, I go walking and birdwatching when I can and those things fill me with joy, I run this Stack and over 100 people find enough value in what I do here to subscribe to it, I host The Space Poetic and The Poetry Book Club and a series of workshops and clubs and there’s joy and community in all of them…
I am living exactly the life a previous me wanted so badly.
Yes it’s difficult balancing creative work, career building, paid employment, neurodivergence, fitness, health, social etc etc. Yes there’s things I want to do like artistic exploration that I currently can’t. And yes my day job hella burns me out.
No where I am now isn’t the epitome of my dreams. No I don’t make enough money from writing to drop even one day of employment.
But is it good? Has there been progress? Hell fucking yeah. Across the board there’s been so much progress, and if I only focus my narrow thinking of one definition of success then I’m liable to miss all of that. Even my tiring job has it’s good bits: my teammates (and friends!), the route setting, the days I get to spend doing maintenance work instead of instructing...
We're always changing the parameters for success in our lives and that's absolutely nutty, but maybe it’s also just a part of being human in contemporary society and the work is in cultivating awareness of that, and of how we define progress or success, and in intentionally building in time to stop and recognise how far we’ve already come.
The journey is lumpy and bumpy and wiggly and winding; sometimes, oftentimes in my experience, progress is lateral.
What have you got/done that you’re not recognising because you’re too busy looking at the stuff up ahead and being low key pissed at yourself for not reaching it yet?
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