Stress and Self-Indulgence

I made a mistake this morning. It started out so well. I got the kids on their zoom calls with only one minor technical problem, cleared the breakfast table and did the yoga I’ve been meaning to get to for the past week. The stress around here has been palpable, between my work fears, the usual kid chaos, our annual October wind storms and then, you know, the hugely contentious election, pandemic, global warming and all that. My therapist likes to remind me that constant stress requires consistent release and that doing yoga once a month isn’t going to do it in these times.

So I did the good thing. I turned on my yoga app and did my workout routine, even through the interruptions and the dog who thinks that me laying on the floor means cuddle time and the cat who believes downward dog=kitten playground. And it worked. My chest was less tight, my breathing had steadied and my brain was no longer cycling through my to-do list. Yay!

And then I made a mistake. Because when I went to turn off the yoga app, I took just a second to check the news. And then Facebook. And then Twitter. And then I might as well have not wasted my yoga time. I suppose my muscles are microscopically stronger but who cares? I’m back in the rut.

One of the great struggles of our time is trying to figure out the balance of being informed with being overwhelmed. We live in a global world and there is just too much to care about. Because it’s not that I don’t care. I really do. But if I’m being pragmatic, I need to focus my efforts where I can actually make a difference. And compared to the giant struggles of our time, my efforts make such a small difference. And my yoga feels self-indulgent.

But I believe that those last two statements are false. Not even a little bit false. Lies, lies, lies. We need to focus on the small differences. That’s where the change happens. You think that gender equality efforts led to changed laws overnight? You think that smallpox was eradicated in a weekend? Every great thing is small moments repeated. It’s hard conversations that we don’t shy away from. It’s postcards written or hours spent mentoring about a child or even yoga workouts done so I have the gumption to keep moving forward.

And we will have missteps. Maybe no one cares about those postcards. Maybe I write a book that no one ever reads. Maybe you spend hours working hard with good intentions and it comes to nothing. But those moments weren’t nothing. They changed you. Hopefully into a kinder, fiercer, more resilient advocate for future days.

That social media spell I fell under just now? That changed me too. And not for the better. I think it’s kind of funny. I grew up in the era where fundamentalists told us that every song we listened to, every show we watched, every video game we played was garbage that would turn us all into school-shooters. And I ended up agreeing that what we take in does affect what we put out there. But it’s not The Matrix we should be worried about. It’s the lies, the hate, the casual disregard for each other’s humanity that we have to reject.

So what can you do today, however seemingly self-indulgent, that makes you into the person you were made to be? As for me, I’m turning off that damn phone for an hour or two. I can catch up on the news some other time.

Serenity Dillaway4 Comments