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The need to always be doing

April 24th, 2015

Audio version of this post

I’m sitting here right now, at the end of the week. After an extremely busy week and especially today, which had multiple deadlines. To say my plate is full at the moment is an understatement.

But here I sit with the little down/alone time that I have and I feel compelled to work on something. Well more like guilty than compelled.

Doesn’t this make me sound crazy? To a lot of people yes, and even to me, but I know that this situation may resonate with you. Why is it that as those who do – those who build – feel this urge to constantly be producing?

I read an article by Josh Long the other day about what he calls the Pseudo Self about how we build up our future selves and who we will be when we accomplish what it is we want to accomplish, but how we can never reach that level. We take the stimuli around us, the people we follow on Twitter, the people that we feel are doing what it is that we want to do, and we set this impossible standard. This impossible standard that has me feeling guilty on a Friday at 7:50pm, the day before my birthday, for not doing work.

This is crazy. We need to learn that going full throttle all the time is not possible. We need to stay focused and work during the times of inspiration. We need to be able to shut it off.