As you may know, I regularly fight against my tightwad Capricorn tendencies. It’s an ongoing battle, and I don’t always win. I can work myself into a lather over perceived deficits and surpluses, create anxiety over whether the cushion is big enough (note: it never is), and keep a running total of this months’ take in my head when I should have room for other things.
I thought I had learned the lesson about treating myself a long time ago, but I’ve realized recently that I have not. So I am attempting to learn it yet again. It’s a difficult lesson to learn – I still feel dirty taking a morning off to go to yoga, or admitting that I don’t have to work a full day if I don’t want to. I know a lot of workaholics – I work in an industry full of them, in which it’s a badge of honor to say you pulled an all-nighter to get the last project finished in time for a client review/launch/print date/trade show/arbitrarily-set deadline. I live in a city full of them, with a white-hot economy and a mindset that frowns on looking inward, taking a breath, or, often, having fun.
All this work-work-work and go-go-go gets pretty wearing. It can make you squirrelly. It clouds your vision, so you don’t see what’s really going on, either inside or outside of your head. It’s not healthy.
And yet we push ahead anyway.
I’ve been doing some exercises recently that are supposed to help me solidify my goals, and have the career I want. They’ve been helpful in other, surprising ways, too. I’ve come to realize that as much as I love writing, I want to explore other things, too. I want to have time for things I enjoy. It’s difficult to let go of that feeling that between nine and five I’m supposed to be on, tethered to my desk and ready to churn out the next assignment. I used to read Fast Company magazine all the time when I worked in the corporate world, and there was always a story about someone who had quit the rat race to have the life they wanted. I want to be that person. I just need to learn how.
I made a baby step toward it this week, by treating myself to a six-month yoga pass at my favourite studio downtown. I had a twelve-week pass last year, and I gave it up because it was too hard to find parking. (And okay, any Calgarians who read this know that finding parking downtown is a bitch, and by the time you find a space and plug the meter with every last remaining coin you have in your possession, you’re so irate that you do, in fact, require 75 minutes of yoga to cool off.) But this time I decided that I should just stop being anxious about the time it takes. So what if I start work at seven, and stop at nine to go to a class? So what if I stop again at noon to walk the dog, then work through till five? Who cares? As long as my work gets done, and it’s good, everything will be okay.
So on Tuesday I took off at lunch and went to a class. I did it again this morning, at 9:30. And it was fabulous. I spent 75 minutes doing something I love, that’s good for me. If I started to think about the RFP response I had to write, I shut it off. If I wondered why the woman in front of me was so good at Tree Pose, when I was all over the place, I shut that off, too. It was great, and I am going to do it again next week.
And I can guarantee you, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep from feeling guilty about it.