just pick one thing

my current crisis #03

Finally, the next bank holiday is here. You’ve been looking forward to it because this is the day you’ve been planning to use to catch up on everything. Yes, everything.

Not only are you going to catch up on everything, but you’re going to get ahead on everything. You haven’t started yet, but that’s okay. That’s what this whole day is for. You’ve been saving it all up for right now.

Nothing is stopping you. You even told your friends on the group chat that today’s the day you’re getting it all done. Everyone supports you and has agreed to leave you alone and let you do your thing!

And then, once you finally sit down to focus on everything, you notice something. There’s an unsightly thread-pull on the sleeve of your sweater.

How did that get there? How long has it been like that? Could I fix that? No… I don’t think so. This sweater is completely fucked. Shit. This sucks.

Then, you notice something else. It’s a piece of mail you received from the city a week ago. It says “Time Sensitive” on it, which is kind of rich coming from a mailed envelope in this day and age? Isn’t it?

That’s a joke you chuckled over with yourself a week ago when you first received the mail. It was fun to joke about a week ago, but now it’s been a week -- YOU HAVE KEPT THE CITY WAITING FOR A REPLY FOR A WHOLE WEEK!

Shit, shit, shit how could you? After everything this city has done for you!

But wait, wait, no, it’s fine. Remember? This is what today is all about. Today is about dealing with everything, and yes you mean everything. And you’re getting ahead on everything. So this mail will be dealt with. You just need to add it to the other stack of mailed envelopes that need to be dealt with. And you have a note in your notebook about how you’re going to deal with all the mailed envelopes at 3pm so that’s that! You’re basically done!

Okay now back to the main thing you REALLY want to focus on…

Crap. What was it again? Like, seriously. Which thing was the most important, most compelling, most, like if this one thing doesn’t get done today, I’m gonna feel like dirt for a whole month?

You aren’t sure. Because there are TONS of things to do. And there are LOADS of things on your mind. And you feel drawn to all different kinds of work and no one can tell you which work is the most pressing, most wonderful, most rewarding work except for you.

You’re in a pickle. You’re in a real existential jam this bank holiday.

A very upsetting feeling takes over, but it’s not anything you haven’t felt before. You’ve got lots of health-forward coping mechanisms to try.

You journal, you breathe, you go for a walk, you try a bunch of stuff, okay? But you’re still not sure how to get back to your original purpose for the day. So there’s only one thing left to do.

You see, you happen to be one of those people who comes with a sturdy support system. You’ve been building and reinforcing that lattice for decades now. It might actually be your greatest asset.

Like, you know you can’t fix your sweater, but you have three or four different people in mind that you could call right away to advise you on how to fix knits.

So that’s what you do. You go to your group chat and reach out. You find someone who is available to listen and help you push through the funk.

You talk to this person for an hour and they have a lot of helpful stuff to say. They ease you back to a neutral mental state. They remind you of your values and which project you love the most right now.

You want to hang a gallery wall of macaroni pasta art in your home office! That’s what you’ve been meaning to do for a long time! You’ve been talking about it to anyone who would listen since the pandemic!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/KidsArtnCrafts/posts/creative-art-and-craft-activities-for-kids-/2482904305187992/

Your friend from the group chat helps you come up with a few reasonable and totally doable action items to accomplish before the sun goes down.

But as soon as you hang up with the friend you realize something. It’s 3pm! Your phone reminders are dinging to remind you that you said you would deal with the stack of mail at 3pm!

You collapse. You’re exhausted. How is it possible that the day is mostly gone and you have accomplished so little?

That’s when you remember! Your values!

You jump back up to your feet and retrieve the notebook where you were jotting down notes throughout the phone call with your friend.

Did you write anything down about dealing with snail mail from the city? No, you did not.

And you WILL deal with the snail mail from the city, you really will! Either that, or it will deal with you. In any case, you have determined that you don’t need to spend your precious bank holiday time on the scary mail. The scary mail is good to haunt you for at least another week.

You step into your home office and pull the framed macaroni pasta art out of its storage box. You admire the artwork. A friend of yours made it for you. You would call them if you could. This is how you can spend time with them now.

You feel horrible about keeping their art in a weird box on the floor for years. It hits you in such a harsh way that it really has been several years.

How has it been years?

You shake it off. Because, okay fine, so it’s been years. You’re strong enough to accept that it’s been years. And now is now. And you want the art up on the walls now.

You begin arranging the frames on the floor in a configuration that you like. As always, a lot comes up for you. But this time you’re having a realization about something tangible and immediate. The actual work of handling this task shows you that it’s going to take more than one day to complete.

Like, even if you had started it earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered. You need more than one bank holiday to complete this activity. You feel sad. But you feel determined. You’ll go slow, but the most important thing is that you will go.

This is not a bank holiday project. This is not a rainy day hobby. This is valuable to you right now. You are going to set aside a little bit of time every day to get this art up on the wall.

By Friday, the art is up. And you get a nice compliment during a Zoom call.

---

Hey Everyone!

This one was long and meandering and probably extremely unhelpful haha sorry!

But you know what is helpful? The LD Accountability Discord Server.

We have nearly 20 people in there committing to personal projects and tasks and producing beautiful work all on their own terms. Come join if you want in on this!

We’ve started conversations about what works/doesn’t work for us and we’re offering each other advice about overcoming challenges. It’s cool!

My favorite tip from the weekend came from a friend who read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. The friend says that he finds a weekly commitment much more difficult to stick to than a daily commitment. So rather than write a certain number of pages per week, he will be writing a couple hundred words per day.

This is the advice that inspired my Substack post this week, but I think what I actually wrote went way off the rails. But that’s okay! This is a practice space. Please forgive the mess.

But here’s one helpful tip I’ll add: Just pick one thing.
You absolutely cannot prioritize everything. Literally impossible. Please, just pick one thing. One project. Then pick one tiny aspect of the project. Inch your way forward every day. Keep your expectations for actual output low.
I’m telling you. Just pick one thing. Move in inches.

OKAY, AND LASTLY:
Thank you to my friends who came to the Green Tea Comedy Show in North Hollywood on 10/12! You were all really kind to me and my baby. I probably won’t bring him out to comedy shows so much anymore because he’s getting bigger and more vocal. I need to teach him to be respectful and earn his mic time.

But this has been a fun, unforgettable era and I sincerely appreciate you all for being so supportive while I find my place as a writer/performer and as a new parent.

ANYWAY:
Yes, thank you for being here, please be peaceful this bank holiday. The only upset I wish to see today is the one that will undoubtedly come from our collective action as we dismantle the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

<3 LD