Rethinking Productivity for a Life Well-Lived

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean —

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Lately, I've found myself mulling over the infamous quote from Mary Oliver: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" This question has forced me to pause and reflect on my own life. I am a doer and find sitting around to be a waste of time. However, the longer I let Mary Oliver's question linger, the more I begin to see how wasteful it is for me to always be doing rather than being present in my day-to-day life. I realize that perhaps a productive day, a productive life, is less about doing all I can in a day and more about allowing myself to slow down and be present in the moment.

I often battle the belief that if I don't do enough, I won't be enough. And if I am being extremely honest and truthful, I use constant doing as a mechanism, a deflection. If I stay busy enough, I don't have to sit with my thoughts or allow myself to get curious about my emotions, anxieties, or fears. Constant busyness is my armor—it leads me to believe that I can outrun myself, my emotions, my traumas. The truth is, I can't. Eventually, they will all catch up to me, the armor will fall, and I will be left utterly exhausted, forced to face myself, my emotions, and everything I have spent my time and energy outrunning. If we never stop, we never have to feel.

As women, especially as mothers, we are taught this narrative that we should always be doing more. Then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted, and burnt out. In Elise Loehnen's book, "On Our Best Behavior," she talks about the necessity of creating moments of unfocused time in our days. When we get so caught up in trying to be focused and complete all the tasks that "need" to be done, we fail to tap into our full potential and ultimately burn ourselves out.

We have a wonderful digital wall calendar that is connected to our personal calendars and updates every few minutes. While I appreciate a central and convenient way to manage the schedules of five individuals, lately I find the calendar distasteful and irritating. I have no one to blame but myself. I give into the belief that I have to keep us busy and always on the go every second of the day because to be home doing nothing would be a waste of a day. So, I pack our schedules full and then force grumpy, tired children to muster the energy, fix their attitudes, and do the things. As I sit and think about that incessant need to always be doing—who am I doing that for? The honest answer is that it's to live up to society's ridiculous expectations. Whenever someone asks me how our summer is going, I puff up my chest and say with fake enthusiasm that it's been so busy but also great! To be honest, I'm not sure if that response is for them to admire my ability to do all things or if it's to convince myself that we've created a summer full of core memories.

Even today, my youngest and I had just gotten home from a morning of errands and appointments, and he wanted me to curl up and watch a movie with him. My response was, "you can absolutely go watch a movie, I have things to take care of." The truth is, the never-ending to-do list could have waited, but I allowed the ever-nagging belief that I always have to be doing and that resting is only for the weak to take over.

When I think about that and consider what I'd want to do with my one wild and precious life, running away from rather than toward healing, growth, and emotional acknowledgment is not how I want to spend my life. I want to intentionally leave more days wide open and spend more time living in the moment. I want to admire and absorb the simple things: the way a butterfly flutters and flies around the yard, the sound birds make, the rustling of leaves in the trees. I want to notice the shapes clouds form and how a day with no clouds feels compared to a cloudy one. How refreshing a glass of water is on a hot day—all the little things that make up a day.

Perhaps being truly productive is learning how to do less in a world that screams at us to do more. I want to say no to more doing and yes to more rest. I want to read more and write more. I want to sit in the stillness of moments and breathe. I want to set down the armor and allow myself to feel the weight of all my emotions, explore the unhealed parts of myself, and tenderly tend to and heal those parts. I will practice cultivating deep love for myself, allow myself off the hook, and understand that it is not my job to be all things to all people. I do not have to put the world back in order. I will choose to believe that I am doing exactly enough and lean into living this one wild and precious life at a slower pace, with attentiveness to moments rather than to-do lists.

I am choosing to slow down to break that generational curse that has plagued women and teach my children that there is nothing wrong with a lazy day, with a day spent admiring a grasshopper. I want them to know we don't have to outrun our emotions—they can be felt in the moment and explored. They don't have to burn themselves out for an outdated societal belief that they must always be doing if they wish to be successful.

So, what about you, friend? "What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?