On striving

“Good better best, never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better best”.

Urgh. I wasn’t in scouts or whatever place this ditty comes from. But I was in a dysfunctional family with a judgy single mum who used to say this, and busted her nut to put me through dance training.

Ballet brain.

That conditioning instilled from early childhood that there is always more trying to be done.

So I’m 40. I’m raising a teen and a toddler. The teen is home schooling.

I’ve been admired, adored, adulated, and very bloody good in every job I’ve ever worked.

And yet, amongst all the life work I’m already doing, I’m trying to complete a Masters degree.

Why?

It’s hard work. It’s indoor, screen based work, on days where I put the little one into care, when the days outside beckon me into them, with garden chores, bird conferences, and subtle shifts in the breeze, all waiting to shower me with the joy of being alive.

But here I sit, generating feelings of inadequacy, panic, fatigue…

for what?

I am already great. I believe this.

I am already contributing.

I am already employable.

I am already tired.

I am already tired.

I have worked hard enough for long enough.

This one does not spark joy today.