Thursday, February 20, 2014

Productivity and happiness



I have been fooling myself horribly for the last couple of years. The main problem: I lived to the base principle that productivity = happiness.

I know myself as a ‘slow’, flowing from here to there kind of person. I don’t have a very steady concentration, my mind will blow to anywhere. I have a lot of interests and a lot of amazing creative projects that I really long to create. That is me. I know that I do not function well in this society where its members are pressured to work hard and impress with successes.
I function best in an environment where there is no expectations at all. Where I am close to nature and free to do whatever I feel like doing. I take better care of myself, have more love and joy to share with the people around me and create beautiful things.
Now I have created a space for myself where I have very little financial needs. I work two days a week and that should cover all. Still I am pushing myself to work harder, be better, create more. I have the space to let myself flow freely, yet I don’t.

And then that word.. Functioning… What does it mean? Don’t I function already? I live, I breathe. I function. Do I need to do more? The idea that I do need to do more than just live is very persistent. How do you experience this? What kinds of demands do you have for yourself? When are you satisfied?

Last tuesday night I had an accident. As I was driving home from working in my studio, a car just pulled up out of a parking space and I smashed right into it with my bike. I am okay, but my body hurts and I feel dizzy and slow. As always, life creates the perfect opportunity for me to stop and re-evaluate. (Too bad it had to hurt so much, though..)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.

-Alan Watts

:)