Unrelated

This is the 4th time I’ve started this blog over this morning. I’ve written a good 600 words or so now, and thrown them all away because they feel mechanical and clunky.

This one might wind up feeling the same and get deleted too.

I am exhausted today, and I feel kind of rough. My throat and head are hurting, and I didn’t sleep well at all. My nose is all stuffy too. (insert sad music)

My mind wants to create a link between these symptoms and other things in my life. A link that does not exist. I still have a blog to write and clients to see and Max needs to get to daycare. These things will not magically take care of themselves just because I don’t feel well.

I talk to people a lot about not letting unrelated things influence each other, such as how I feel being related to writing a daily blog or having a bad day at work influencing how you talk to your family that evening. I said I would write a blog every day, that is the end of the story. How I feel has nothing to do with this. I have appointments scheduled for today. These appointments and what people need from me are unrelated to how I feel. If I found out I was contagious, they would be related, but apart from that, they are not.

I really like how a client stated it to me this week, I think she said she saw it on Reddit:

“Your goals don’t care how you feel.”

Neither do your responsibilities to your self and your family and everyone else.

Feeling sick or tired or grumpy or homicidal doesn’t mean that you won’t be losing ground if you waste a day or that people will excuse unacceptable behavior.

Skipping a workout, a class or a day at work will have a negative impact on you, no matter what your reason for bailing is.

The reason is entirely irrelevant.

We tend to make these invalid associations with all sorts of things in our lives, I wonder if it is because of the superior pattern recognition capabilities we have evolved. We see rabbits in the clouds and imaginary concessions in situations.

How we feel and the consequences of avoiding responsibility are unrelated, we don’t get a free pass just because we have the sniffles.

At least that is what I am telling myself right now.