delhi ponnu

White summers are those full of lawn and linen, the sea and soft sunshine, cherries and children’s smiles, in which you feel disconnected and light, almost floating, dreamy and distant in a haze of white dandelion fluff. You don’t ever want to land.

I’m someone who struggles a lot A LOT with getting things done. and when your “make doing 60% your default” post showed up on my timeline it felt like a hug. because i have a tiny bully in my head who’s one of those wretched people who asks me to give my 100% every time and runs me dry.

but i, the loving me, struggle so much to get done with the 60% too. im scared shitless that when i do sit down to work I’ll discover that my default is 20% and reaching 60% feels like a dream.

Any thoughts on this? I just sent this because that post really was helpful.

So thanks and love 💗

I'm glad you felt my post could help you! I am unfortunately Just Some Guy who hammered out a sequence of words and pressed post without thinking too hard about it and then that sequence of words got reblogged a lot. but I am very grateful that people find my sequence of words helpful! it's been genuinely enlightening to discover that even if I don't think what I said was particularly novel or interesting, it can still resonate with people. everyone can be part of XKCD's lucky 10,000, I guess.

anyway! so! bulletpoints!

I wasn't expecting that post to blow up the way it did so I wasn't as clear on this as I should have been, but if I could go back in time and rewrite it I'd want to make this very very clear: THIS IS A POST ABOUT NOT WORKING YOURSELF TO EXHAUSTION

my point wasn't "you don't have to do 100 blorps you can just do 60 blorps and it's okay" it was "don't give 100% of yourself. if you want to function you need to keep some of that shit in reserve"

the most depressing reblogs on that post are from people thinking I neglected to think about disabled people in my post. I don't know how to explain to you that I think disabled people also should not be working themselves to exhaustion.

basically it's spoon theory. do kids these days still know spoon theory? I suspect spoons are cringe these days, but everyone should go read the spoon theory essay and understand what I was trying to say with that post.

I'm sorry I wish I could go back in time and write that post better. alas. time is linear and I travel forwards at the rate of one second per second.

sorry that got away from me. anyway:

if your "default is 20%" in that 20 blorps is the maximum number of blorps you can give, then get used to giving it 60% of 20 blorps. give it 12 blorps. THIS IS A POST ABOUT NOT WORKING YOURSELF TO EXHAUSTION.

if you know what your 100% looks like, and 20% of that is what you feel comfortable giving, then I'd gently suggest to reassess what your 100% actually is. is that actually your 100%, or is it your 200+% Extreme Stress Response?

do what you can. 20% is better than 0%. doing a little is better than doing nothing at all. ask people for help when you need it. don't exhaust yourself; make sure to keep energy in reserve. WORKING YOURSELF TO EXHAUSTION IS WORSE THAN 0% ACTUALLY.

I am very very aware that this advice is not always perfectly practical to put into operation. capitalism will often demand more from you than you're able to give. I don't have an answer for this! I am literally Just Some Guy! join a union, look into disability benefits, get into local politics, I don't know! I wish you the best but I'm literally Just Some Guy who typed some words on the internet, I can't solve everything forever!!

anyway uh. please read the original spoon theory essay. ALSO I highly recommend looking into disability activism more generally. I don't have any specific recs for this because again: I am literally Just Some Guy I'm not a scholar in this area. most of what I know is because I follow/befriend/interact with other people who are literally Just Some Guy/Gal/Gender-neutral within the disability sphere. but the more people you interact with the more you'll learn about your own life and your own needs.

IN CONCLUSION:

I'm glad my post could help you. I'm genuinely so so glad you found it and that something in it spoke to you. and please: really, really give it your 20%. do what you can, and don't exhaust yourself, and make sure to keep something in reserve for you and you only.