Let the splash of colors in the setting sun remind you, at the end of it all, you have permission to be undone here.

Morgan Harper Nichols

The other day my daughter discovered she could climb up onto our black Ikea recliner chair. She would climb up, turn around, sit back down and slowly slither off the chair, only to repeat the same thing probably 20 more times over the next 20 minutes. I was in awe of her discovery and so proud of her for having the courage to flex this muscle. She was mesmerized by her newfound skill and this sense of wonder trickled out to every corner of the room.

In the short month that I’ve been home from work I’ve had several insights. One glaring insight which I’ve known to be true for countless years but am only just now starting to see more clearly is my tendency to focus on productivity. I am a hopeless perfectionist, always looking to identify what’s missing, what I have yet to accomplish, what is one more thing I can get done before the timer goes off. Not working in the traditional sense, over the last month it has become painfully obvious just how much I’ve valued productivity as a marker of my self-worth. Even though I no longer have a task list in Outlook that I’m monitoring, I can feel myself fighting the urge to fill every moment of the day with something worthwhile.

I’ve been listening to a book on Audible called Laziness Does Not Exist, by social psychologist, Dr. Devon Price. In it, Price provides a social and historical backdrop for how humans have come to see productivity and overachieving as a measure of self-worth. Through interviews, research and personal stories, Price explains that people today work far more than nearly any other humans in history. And yet, we often still feel we are not doing enough and we are not good enough.

In the months immediately after our daughter was born, when my wife and I were caring for her around the clock, I lamented often that I was getting “nothing” done. Laundry would pile up, the house unraveled, any form of exercise took a backseat. I struggled to find time to even return a phone call. I started obsessing over how many thank you notes I was able to churn out in a given day. Even putting a stamp and address on an envelope felt gratifying. In spite of the fact that we were literally keeping a tiny human being alive, I was grasping for what more I could do to feel productive. Taking a nap was hard. It meant I was losing precious hours in the day. I was a walking, breathing zombie but my internal task master persona was screaming from within.

Today, as my daughter rounds the 18 month mark, I am starting to realize I may have had it all wrong the past 20+ years I’ve been working. I can see now that I have been running on a false “high” in chasing my email inbox and to-do list every day.

I still have a deep yearning to check things off my personal to do list (returning calls, bills, chores, sending out the infamous thank you note). I am often carrying around a subtle sense of guilt and even shame for not “producing” enough. One friend likened this new space that I’m in to a period of detox. Amidst the fog I can start to see and feel what happens when I don’t count the seconds of productivity in each moment of the day.

My daughter continues to test her boundaries. Whether transforming an Ikea chair into a slide or dropping food onto the floor and then cracking up, she has a way of making time stand still.

May the color she brings to my life and the lessons she continues to teach me every day about slowing down guide me in the unfolding and unraveling of this need to produce and fill time with such precision. As Morgan Harper Nichols quotes, “…the permission to be undone here.”