Channeling my high school spirit animal: the energizer bunny
Not everyone is an energetic morning person. I happen to be one of those irritatingly cheerful, fully awake-as-soon-as-I-open-my-eyes, semi-frequent skipper through parks. I am energetic. So much so that my high school principal, who also coached winter track, dubbed me in his annual team poem, The Energizer Bunny.
Weekdays, specifically weekday evenings between 5-9pm, I succumb to the siren song of the refrain "I'm so tired". I don't think I'm actually tired, I believe I'm trying to belong to a pervasive culture of young professionals who feel some form of tiredness, laziness, anguish, or ennui after the work day.
But why am I giving into this when I'm not actually tired?!Fear. Anxiety. Feeling overwhelmed by daily chores, maintaining a house, wanting to do amazingly well in my work, my unquenchable thirst for reading and travel. There are only so many hours in the day after sleeping, working and commuting and I want to cram so much into those minutes. Rather than prioritize what I want to do, I get sucked into my couch (nearly) and Netflix my evenings away, or I'll have dinner with a friend and crash to bed at 9:30pm rather than taking a precious 30 minutes to blog or read or take a look at that piece of fiction that's nagging at me that I STILL HAVEN'T WORKED ON IN A MONTH.
A decision has been made; I'm going to embrace my energy. I'm going to stop making excuses and just write. And work on dance choreography in the studio. And get off the couch and clean what needs to be cleaned and take more walks.I'm going to be kind to myself and allow myself the time and space to follow the muse when she shines her light on my fingers and type or scribble furiously when inspiration strikes. I'm not going to force the words or the moves to come to me. And I'll be damned sure to lean into the energy rather than give in to the notion that I'm allegedly tired or lazy or flat-out incapable of doing something.A valuable piece of advice I've heard is something I want to share with you all. "You can do anything, but you can't do everything." It's a concept that plagues me often due to the fact that my interests really run the gamut. Right now, for instance, I'm working on:
- Learning Dothraki for fun (Me nem nesa)
- Choreographing a dance to Kesha's "Praying" to submit for a show in November with my favorite dance studio PMT in Union Square
- Working on this here little blog
- Reorganizing my closet and unburdening myself of excess belongings (bye bye extra things!)
- Smashing my writing objectives at work (be quippier, be more human, make 'em laugh, be smart!)
- Loads of other tingsssss
I know I can't possibly accomplish all of these activities and pursue every single interest beyond this baby-sized list with any sort of finesse. But I can try to knock them out one by one with focus, drive and by tapping into my endless sources of energy.
You can too. It's a matter of recognizing when your energy reserves are high and looking for an outlet to spark outwards and upwards and create something amazing whatever that may be for you.Me nem nesa.