I'm a Workaholic. Here's How I'm Learning to Rest 😴✨
my thoughts on productivity, capitalism & relaxation - welcome back to the Slush Pile!
Back in Issue 04 of The Slush Pile in March, I spoke a bit about the stress and anxiety I was going through and the strategies I was planning to use to combat those experiences: more forcefully separating work and life, carving out time to relax, being kinder to myself. Unfortunately, not much has changed. My work-life balance has improved in some aspects but has stayed equal or worsened in others. This month so far has been especially difficult, what with all my various projects, jobs, and general low life moments. More and more, I’m realizing that none of us were truly made for labor.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy my work or that writing has become some sort of burden on me. On the contrary, it continues to give me a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction—after the fact. In the moment, it’s not always easy. It takes energy, time, hours I could be working on other things I actually love. Rather than doing whatever I need to survive and save up for the days when I no longer have that stability as a means of support.
Yet at the same time, I’m finding that the moments when I’m happy, truly at my best, truly free of burden, are when I’m not working at all. When I’m with the people I love or sitting at home doing nothing. And that’s a big change for me. For most of my life, doing nothing and refusing productivity has only ever brought me a sense of guilt, inadequacy, the feeling that I don’t deserve to rest even for a day.
That’s why I titled this issue with that label of workaholic on myself. It’s not that I’m proud of it or long to reclaim it or want to pretend it’s a less weighty word than it is. It’s something I’m wrestling with all the time. It’s probably the truest part of me. Do I miss out or arrive late to this party to finish an article? Do I cancel these plans and stay at this meeting that’s gone on longer than anticipated? What do I sacrifice? What do I give up and what for? Ever since college, I’ve been known to be an active participant in that toxic productivity work culture, to base my entire self-worth on the amount I can get done in a day. For so long, my value as a human being was inseparable from the length of my checklists.
But now things are becoming different. I’m not the same person I was back in March. Always, always I’m looking for those rare moments of rest between the hours I’m on call or working on my latest piece. To nap, to read, to watch a movie and not feel like I should be doing something serviceable to society or that which will give me some sense of purpose.
It’s a selfishness I’m not ashamed of, that I’m willing to keep for myself. Some may call it lazy too but in such a destructive system like ours, I’m convinced a little laziness is earned, should even be encouraged to defy what’s expected of us and how that’s been dangerously normalized throughout history.
And despite this issue’s title, I’m not sure how I’m learning it other than just doing it. Making compromises with deadlines and work hours to reclaim for myself a bit of empowerment, independence, time, energy, self-worth, autonomy—as well as just simply saying no. Especially at my age and in our current times, there’s real privilege and freedom in that.
Because at the end of the day, I deserve to be happy. If we’re stuck with capitalism for a while, I deserve to find my own way in it, to find a path that works best for me, to work and not be completely miserable. We all do. We are all worth being free.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
Monarch Butterflies Carry the Souls of Our Ancestors. Raising Them Helps Me Honor Mine, Refinery29 Somos
‘Crush’ is the Queer Latina Representation I Needed as a Teen, LatinaMedia.Co
Avril Lavigne's "Love Sux": What We Can Learn From the Iconic Pop Punk Princess, Unpublished Magazine
updates:
I’m excited to announce (again!) that STREAMING SERVICE: season two, the sequel to my self-published debut poetry chapbook STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv, will be releasing JUNE 28TH, 2022! Digital and signed physical copies will be available, as well as the option to bundle both chapbooks. Read more about the project here! Thank you as always for your support :’)
Last month, my magazine Mag 20/20 opened up submissions for writing, art, music, photos, and more! If you’re a creative in your 20s, please feel free to submit your work to us before submissions close on June 4th, 2022 at this Google Forms link!
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu
currently watching:
Bob’s Burgers S10
currently listening to:
Blonde by Frank Ocean
all my love,
sofía xx