Spoiler alert: Living through a pandemic sucks if your entire self-worth is fueled by productivity.

For a moment, let’s skip right around the fact that a mindset where your self-worth is fueled by how much you produce does not come highly recommended. I would go so far as to say it’s probably one of my least healthy habits.

We’ll also skip around the fact that THIS problem being one of my biggest during a pandemic is such a privilege. That fact is not missed on me. While I am working from home with a cat sleeping in my lap, so many others stand in the line of fire. I am able to self-isolate quite well, and even then, I’m an introvert. I’m fortunate in so very many ways. I thrive in times of quiet and rest where my mind is given space to sprawl.

But my mind thrives like this in normal times. As it turns out, people got something right when they refer to the time of this global pandemic as “unprecedented.”

I also don’t think I’m saying anything that hasn’t been said before. Did you know that it’s hard to think straight when the world is in constant chaos and your body tightens with all the tension of fight or flight? If you’re like me, you too have been going through this since about March 2020. You certainly remember how many of us felt at the beginning.

Be kind to yourself.

Make time to socialize with others digitally.

It’s okay that this is hard.

And back in March and April and May of 2020, it was easy to see that this was excellent advice to follow. When you spend every five minutes refreshing the news to learn about how we are falling into what looks a lot like a literal apocalypse, yeah, your mind is a bit busy trying not to completely capsize and sink heavily beneath the waves. Even an anxious mind like mine is able to convince itself that there is some sense in rest.

In the early days of the pandemic, I abandoned work on a hard story that was exhausting to write when your brain is on fire with all the information you’re trying to internalize. I started playing video games again, more than I had in a long time. I lost myself in the idyllic world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the chaotic playful world of Two Point Hospital. I watched soooo much YouTube, since so much as following a plot was too much for my overtired brain.

And then spring turned to summer turned to…all the way around to now, November 2021. And I still don’t see a realistic path back to some sort of normal. Obviously, the world has changed dramatically since March 2020. We are not the same people we were before the global pandemic forced us to assess our apocalypse readiness. But I’m not here to talk about a path back to “normal” or how fast or slow it’s going. I’m no expert on human coping mechanisms or…you know, economic recovery. I just know what I feel, and what I feel is this:

I am really not a fan of this slow period in my life.

Again, I remind myself how fortunate I am that this is my problem. Certainly not my only problem, but that is a conversation for another day. Like everyone else, the pandemic wasn’t the only thing shaping my world over the last year and a half. Some version of life continued on. Some of it good and some of it was very, very bad. So, you know, life.

However, I’ve been struck with the feeling of standing still. The only way I can describe it is like my heart itself is trapped in quicksand while it yet still lives in my chest. I ache to drag my foot forward but it is cemented in place. And the kicker is that only so much of this feeling can be attributed to the pandemic. There are small things in my life that cannot move forward because of the pandemic. I’ve never been much of a traveller but I can’t even explore locally while things are unsafe (with the exception of the parks near me, which I adore). I used to write in coffee shops, and I miss the ViBeS.

The thing is, these small things, these little adventures, don’t necessarily move me forward toward my goals. They’re distractions, or at least small joys, that enrich my life but don’t necessarily advance it. The advancement I have been seeking is in my writing. By writing more, exploring a new idea, sending yet more query letters, all of which I am fully capable of doing from the safety of my own home. Certainly, I can’t write in coffee shops, which is how I prefer to write, but it’s not like I am rendered completely unable to pursue a project. There’s no reason for this to be a slow period in my life.

Except for, you know, the stress of a global pandemic.

I am not kind to myself when it comes to work ethic. Okay, I could work better on self-care all around. But that is yet another conversation for yet another day. When it comes to writing, I make a lot of demands of myself. In the year 2019, I set myself the goal of working on my writing for 500 hours total. It seemed reasonable, about 10 hours a week, right? Except…writing isn’t the same as a day job. It ebbs and flows. Some days, 10 minutes of hard work is just as productive as 3 hours. Some days, you need to let your brain rest. I know all of this. And yet…

And yet I tell myself I am a failure if I don’t achieve these goals.

…

…

So there’s that.

This is my self-talk during a non-traumatic year. During this time of global pandemic, I tried to shove that voice down. I knew I was re-learning how to write from home, after a couple years of almost exclusively writing from coffee shop. Plus, you know, coping with the whole pandemic thing. I slowed down. I built smaller goals. Experimented with new strategies. Which did result in some successes. I returned to a book I thought I wouldn’t try to edit and fell in love with it. I abandoned a book I had been trying to write for a year, only to re-plot and start working on it again in 2021. Wrote an entirely new book from scratch. Tried writing poetry for something other than school or a competition, only to find out I kind of like it. Which sounds like an amazing success, especially given the climate of the world.

So if someone could explain to me why I feel like I haven’t worked hard enough on writing in the last two years, that would be great.

Honestly, the last two years allowed me to focus on quality rather than quantity. Which, yes, logically I know is the right thing. But logic has no power here. Not where guilt can reign. Especially not when I feel like I’m sinking into quicksand and standing still and so very tired of standing still.

Again, I’m not someone who likes traveling. I am an introvert who loves spending time at home with her cat. But I am also an overachiever who wants to be a published author. In high school, I would get up at 5am to get to school and be up to 11pm almost every night working on homework. Spare time was an actual myth. So now that I am an adult, now that I’ve been fully out of school for more than five years now, I struggle to shed the exhausting validation of always moving forward. Always working. The homework might be busywork but it was assigned so it’s still an accomplishment. Which means I’m still looking for the gold star, even if I have to award the stupid sticker to myself.

While I’ve transferred the same mindset to writing, the always working strategy does not offer the same returns. Hasn’t stopped me from trying, though. When I write a novel, I write upwards of 12 drafts, normally. I keep writing, trying new things, find out they’re wrong, try again. Rather than simply taking the time to think through an idea first, which would work just as well. But it’s a slower strategy, even if it’s less labor-intensive than the barreling through without thinking. Which means my brain tells me I’m not working hard enough. Which means I’m not making enough progress toward future publication. Which means I tell myself I am a failure of a writer.

Now, it sounds like the pandemic has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about my productivity with writing. To a certain degree, you would be right. My writing has slowed down but perhaps in a healthier way. But healthy writing—technically speaking—doesn’t get you published. And certainly a publishing industry also slowed down by the pandemic (not to mention overworked and facing the same supply chain issues as every other industry) doesn’t help. Which isn’t my fault, I know, I know, but logic does not matter to the anxiety monster. Not when your brain can spiral instead. On top of that, I don’t have the distractions of other “productivity” to avoid that pressure.

Writing this, I see how illogical my brain is being. Do I think seeing the lack of logic will result in any change in the anxiety I feel over being less productive? Nope.

Definitely nope.

But if you are feeling the same stresses from an anxiety-fueled brain because your self-worth is still frustratingly intertwined with your productivity, you are certainly not alone. In the meantime, I will work on my self-care. I will keep writing, maybe not an hour a day, maybe just a few days a week and just for fifteen minutes each of those days. And hopefully each day, that voice that makes me think I’m less than for taking care of myself will get a little quieter.