Opting Out

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What to take with us?

I read an interesting piece on why we should use the CV pause to evaluate what to take with us into life when we are able to return to “normal.” It gave me food for thought. Of everything I used to do, I only miss a few things: going to the library, going to the playground with MG, and seeing friends. My brain has adjusted to a surprising level of nothingness. Things like going out to eat, going to museums, anything NYC-specific, all seem like things I can do without. Going to the office I can definitely do without. I’ve always been really good at living in my own micro-neighborhood. Since having the baby, we have done all of our errands and excursions within a 15-minute walk of our apartment except for trips to my parents (when we tended to stay within 15 minutes of their house). So what would I take with me from this time?

  • shorter work days
  • more emphasis on simple pleasures (a post coming up about this)
  • leisurely pace for everything, because there is nowhere to be
  • social events being an occasional delightful event rather than obligatory
  • less time in front of technology (I try to leave my phone somewhere after the work day, and take the rest of the day as a tech break)
  • spending a lot of time with family
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Rebuying

I have a resistant to buying online in the best of times and that resistance is especially strong now. It’s been interesting to me that without any of my favorites, I’ve just created a new staple wardrobe out of all my backup options that were in the apartment. I have one pair of pajama pants and one pajama sweatshirt. A daytime fleece, light sweater, and vest. Three pair of day pants: two black leggings (one slightly thicker and with pockets), one pair of jeggings. A pair of waterproof boots, a pair of birks, a pair of toms. And that’s…pretty much it. Some tank tops I rotate through under my clothes. If it’s nighttime and I’m washing my PJs, I wear my backup backup outfit of linen pants, a t-shirt and a cashmere cardigan which my sister calls my chicest office.

There is some stuff on my need to buy list. A new pair of minimalist sneakers, a raincoat, another pair of sweats would be nice for laundry day.  Buying back my tried and trues, like my favorite face soap. But overall, I have a sense that I’d just like to…mostly not.

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2020 Sabbath

Most years, I make a resolution. Or at least more of an intention. I’m generally happy with my life, but I’ll try to tweak things in certain areas. I’ve been thinking about 2020 and what keeps coming to mind for me is the Sabbath. Creating Sabbath within my own life.

As a secular person, I do feel a bit weird about adopting a religious tradition outside of context. But I honestly think people with formal structured Sabbath are probably happier that those without. A forced rest – time for relaxation, away from the never-ending to-do list.

So what would I want a secular sabbath to look like:

  • weekly
  • clear starting and ending points
  • without my phone (I’ve been thinking about getting a sabbath-specific dumbphone so I can see people but not use the internet)
  • a delicious activity: a meal with friends, a massage, a long shower with wine – something that nourishes

I want to some more reading on this…looking at this and this

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Life Update

I have been wanting to write for a long time, but haven’t prioritized it. Life has been good. R and I are both back at work but it has been better than I thought it would be. I have become a drop-off pro, greatly facilitated by the fact that I work from home three days a week. MG is insanely cute, crawling around like a maniac and with very clear preferences. The whole world is her oyster.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the holidays and new traditions. I have a real aversion to traveling anywhere with MG. I firmly think travel is not for the baby, but for the parents (though in our case, mostly an obligation). Babies I think, at least our baby, really like sleeping in their own crib, being the masters of their own place, and spending a lot of time with people they like and know. With Thanksgiving coming up, I am very, very tempted to just bail and do what we want instead. There is something interesting to me about how grandparents (who are retired) get to be visited instead of visit, while working people with families have to cram that into already limited time off. Wow, how crotchety do I sound? I guess I have a sense that it’s not worth spending free time out of obligation. I’ve been very into the simpler life – a life where a good Saturday is making a delicious soup and eating it with bread and friends and taking a walk and watching The Americans while the baby naps. That to me, right now, is much more nourishing that going to check out the new MoMA or taking the train anywhere.

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A drive for perfection

I have found myself being very consumerist recently. Just spending tons of time browsing through clothes, toys, etc. Like, if I buy the perfect thing, my life will become perfect. R and I don’t spend a lot of money by choice because we both would rather save our money so we have more flexibility later on in life with how we want to spend our time. But coming back to work and with MG becoming more interested in the world, I have this quiet anxiety that is telling me to be more perfect. I have probably spent hours looking at beautiful rainbow blocks, stacking bowls, play silks, etc. At the same time, we work very hard to not give MG too many toys and overwhelm her. So where is this drive coming from? It’s like some perverted thought that if I don’t get the right things, life won’t be good. I think I’m going to pause on online shopping for a while and let myself reconnect more with the natural rhythm of my life.

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Millenial Burnout

Have you read this article yet? It really got me thinking about how I think about and structure my time. I’m a very task-oriented person. It makes me excel at work, but also makes me sort of manically work through my weekend to-do list in a way that emphasizes productivity. In a way, I have the opposite problem that this person has…I’m almost too efficient at the doing, and not at the being.

I’ve noticed since becoming pregnant I structure my weekends like this even more so. It became a thing to get ready for baby but now it’s like this weird haze of stress that sits over a lot of my weekend time. This is true even though I feel like R and I are pretty good at having relaxing weekends — watching exactly one episode of TV, going to the coffee shop, taking a nice walk.

I was at the library the other day and started browsing through this book on bullet journaling and it struck me as insanely obsessive. Like, here’s an idea — try to track every single thing you do to put nonstop pressure on yourself to be perfect. Oh yeah, and make sure it is visually pleasing as well. I have this same thing with fitbits and apple watches and all of those things meant to track data for…basically no reason. Even a meditation timer I downloaded recently tracks stats like how long my meditation ‘streak’ is, which makes you feel like meditation only counts if it is logged into the app. But what about time spent mindfully walking or drinking coffee?

I do track some data in my life — when I was lifting for strength, I wrote down my lifts. And I used to track my period and ovulation to avoid and then become pregnant. But the idea of quantifying my own life on this track to continuos improvement or productivity makes me feel very unhappy. Why not be okay with how I am and how my life looks at this moment, and practice being in this moment instead?

 

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Opting Out: Smartphones

Those who know me in real life know that I constantly bring up the idea of getting rid of my smartphone. My company actually pays for my phone and when I am traveling for work, I absolutely do need it. But I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a non-smart phone for my daily use and just turning the smart phone on when I am traveling.

I have not done this yet. I would make an intention to trying to use my phone less and fail — and this was a cycle that repeated over and over. I wasn’t quite ready to drop my phone altogether for three main reasons: 1) How would I take photos? 2) How would I figure out how to get anywhere? 3) How would I keep in contact with my loved ones (whom I mostly communicate with via text).

So what I did was starting deleting apps from my phone. Yup. I went through and deleted every app I didn’t absolutely need. Even Safari. I didn’t even know you could delete Safari! But that, on its own, reduced my smartphone usage each day by probably 60%. I had two apps left that had some level of search and interaction component — the first was google maps and the second was Instagram.

I have about six Instagram friends, and I really use the platform as more of a photo scrapbook. But all of a sudden I was spending 10 minutes at a time on Instagram explore – or searching hashtags. So I deleted Instagram.

And now, I am honestly finding myself using my phone just for navigation, photos, and texting. The cognitive load of my phone has greatly reduced — and it has, once again, become a tool that is serving me. And honestly, I don’t miss having Safari on my phone at all. Not at all. It makes me feel free.

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A Work Uniform

A few years ago, I found a perfect clothing item while thrift shopping. It was a black tunic, made of wool, but with a very loose knit. Sleeveless, it hit around mid-thigh and looked elegant and classy with a simple pair of leggings.

I started wearing this tunic to work every week, then twice a week, then more days a week than I wanted to admit. I hunted in vain for this tunic online but could never find anything by the maker that was even somewhat similar.

I already had a vision — to have THREE work tunics – and then to wear them every day of winter. Never again would I have to struggle to get dressed for work. Never again would I have to wear “work pants.”

Eventually, I did find a few other tunics that were similar. All were wool, two have full sleeves, the third is sleeveless. So now, I have four work tunics. Getting dressed in the morning takes me approximately three minutes because all I have to decide is sleeves or no sleeves and how thick I want my leggings to be.

Opting out of work clothes — inspiration for them, shopping for them, trying them on, returning them, etc, etc, – has been a real joy for me this winter.

Interestingly, only one person in my office ever realized I was wearing the same clothes daily, and this was after I had the work uniform in place for over a month.

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Opting Out: Podcasts

Unconsciously over the last year, I have been seeing what I can opt-out of without incident. After the election in 2016, I got really into podcasts. Partly as a way to escape the insane news, but partly as a way to help me digest it via all the great new political podcasts that emerged. A few months ago, I removed the podcast app from my phone. Now, if I’m on a delayed train or taking a lunch time walk, there’s nothing on my phone for me to listen to (and I don’t carry headphones anyway).

If I want to listen to a podcast now, I have to be at home, open my laptop, and consciously choose one. This has been great because there is a level of intention that I have towards podcasts now where I only listen if I am genuinely engaged.

Podcasts I still listen to include:

  • Call Your Girlfriend — two long-distance besties chat about their lives and their news. Feminist and powerful, it feels like being at brunch with your own best friends.
  • On Being – this was the first podcast I ever listened to. Interviews about life and spirituality. I love listening to the unedited cut so I get a whole sense of the interview. They also have a wonderful blog.
  • This American Life – always a classic. I avoid the sad episodes but there is a such a great archive here that I can almost always find something great.

And that’s it. Contrary to feeling deprived, I feel free from podcasts.