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The Struggle Is Real

I’ve been feeling weird these past few weeks. Almost like I have a bee in my bonnet or something. Like I have something to prove to someone. I don’t know who. But it’s bothering me. It’s getting me down. And I’ve been struggling to articulate to myself what the problem is because on the surface everything is ok. Chump and I are still gainfully employed. We are lucky we can work from home. Our home is comfortable enough to accommodate us and we are not relegated to working in the laundry room or something. Our kids are ok. Our health is ok. Our loved ones are ok. Everything is fine ! So why do I feel like I’m on the verge of a meltdown? Yes I know we are in the midst of a global pandemic that is weird and scary but as someone who has high grade anxiety I have been preparing for this worst case scenario my whole life ( Guilt, anxiety and other such pleasantries). So that’s not it. You know what it is ? It’s the expectation. everything is fine and you are thriving so why are you not being more productive? why have you not got your 6 pack yet ( Push ups and the Chump)? Why haven’t you written a Pulitzer Prize winning novel yet ? Why haven’t you launched a successful business from your sofa yet ? All these whys. All this expectation. And to be clear it’s not anybody else’s expectations, it’s my own. I am literally in a hell of my own making ( Mind Games) . Every night I go to bed thinking I didn’t do enough today. I could have done more. I should have done more. And all I want to do is watch tv. I just want to watch Netflix. And not think about what a failure I am. But instead I punish myself by spending hours in front of my laptop (on the days I’m not working obviously) toiling away at something, anything to give off the impression to myself that I am being productive. I am miserable.

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Podcast

So I’ve had a lot of feedback on my post ( The Struggle Is Real) today from people who feel the same way as me. Like we are all middle class failures. It’s endemic. What’s the solution? I don’t know. How can we feel more productive in our lives? I think this is a classic case of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We have all of our basic needs taken care of and so now we turn to the loftier needs of self actualisation. But this is a harder need to fulfil because attaining self actualisation ain’t no walk in the park. i suspect it has a lot to do with killing the ego. And really who wants to do that? It’s such hard work doing that. I mean it really means digging deep and looking inward. What a ball ache. So instead I’m going to ignore the obvious solution of working on my ego and instead think about starting a podcast. So you’ll have my wisdom in audio format. Yes. Good for you friends. This is exciting.