First I want to say this: Not everybody had a chance to rest up and re-think their priorities during the pandemic. Lots of people worked harder than ever. Lots of people scrambled to keep their families safe, dealt with an impossible school situation for their kids, and faced all kinds of losses and hardships.
But…some people got some rest, or experienced real idleness for the first time in years, or found themselves unencumbered by the demands of their old lives–flying across the country for meetings, sitting in a car for an hour commute every day, juggling three part-time jobs–and had a little time to think about what they’d really like their lives to look like, if they were in charge of deciding that.
And now…it kind of feels like it’s time to decide.
Offices are opening back up. People are flying on planes. Conferences and conventions are tentatively back on the calendar.
Which puts us in a weird position. Do we ramp our lives back up?
Or…now that so many activities were forcefully evicted from our lives, do we re-evaluate each returning thing, each resumption of an old activity, and decide on a case-by-case basis whether it’s allowed back in or not?
I don’t have the answer, but it’s a thing I’ve been thinking about. I’m contemplating a big new project, but I keep ruminating over all the trappings of this particular type of big new project: the deadlines, the expectations, the emails, the travel, the scheduling, the other people who will have to get involved…and I wonder, “Do I want to invite all that back in?”
Or do I want to completely redefine the terms of how a project like this gets done, knowing that I’ll have to explain to everyone involved (including myself, I will need many pep talks) that yes, I’m doing this thing, but no, I won’t be doing it that way. I won’t be doing that part. I won’t be doing it that quickly.
Is that even possible? I don’t know.
I do know this: For twenty years, I’ve thought of myself as a self-employed person because I don’t work at a place and get a paycheck on Friday. But just now it occurs to me that if I haven’t been defining the terms of my projects–if I’ve allowed the expectations and deadlines to be set by editors, publicists, journalists, event organizers, social media platforms–have I ever been truly self-employed?
What does it look like if I just call the shots, and decide for myself what it takes to be moderately scheduled and well-rested, and turn everything else away, without excuses or apologies? WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK????