Well, yesterday got away from me and I didn’t fulfill my promise to myself to write a twenty-minute blog post. I wish I could say I forgot about it altogether, but that isn’t true. As I was trying to help my daughter go to sleep (she was really fighting it last night), I realized that I hadn’t done any writing. It was 8:15 when I left her room for the first time, but I had to go back in two more times before she calmed down and went to sleep. By 9:10, I was completely drained. I know this sounds odd because 9pm is not late, but for some reason, I was exhausted.
Rather than push through the exhaustion, I decided to listen to my body and just go straight to bed. I knew that if I let myself get a second wind, I would be up for hours.
Even though I failed to write, I choose to focus on something I did right. I listened to my body, which is something I fail to do far too often. And even though I was up at 3:40am to feed my daughter and never went back to sleep, I feel more refreshed this morning than I often do and I’m sure it is in part because I went to bed early.
In our society, we see it as a good thing to push ourselves all the time. Work harder, work faster, work longer hours. The more you do this, the better you are, the more important you are.
I would like to argue that sometimes we need to slow down. Sometimes we need to opt for an extra hour or two of sleep. The work will still be there in the morning.
I’m not saying that I’m proud of myself for not living up to my goal of posting every day for a thirty-day period. But I am saying that our well-being is important. I am saying that listening to our bodies is an underrated skill. I am saying that if we fail, we can get back up the next day.
The old me would have scraped the idea of writing a twenty-minute blog post every day for thirty days after the first failure. But the me today believes that I am not a failure if I failed one day. I am going to keep on trucking toward my goal.
