Being kind to yourself

There’s a tendency, especially among creatives, to demand a lot of yourself. In one way this a good thing. Most creatives need a day job to, you know, pay the bills, sometimes two. The only way to get anything done is pushing yourself to meet deadlines, whether those are real or imagined.

But pushing yourself too hard can lead to some dire situations. Burn out, depression, anxiety, all kinds of lovely things that a lot of people take a turn with but nobody really wants. And when you get caught up in that cycle, it becomes really hard to take a break. I took a break last Friday after my work day at the day job was over and, frankly, spent half the night at odds with myself, trying to figure out what people even do on nights off. I wound up reading a personal finance book I’ve been meaning to finish. Yeah. I’ll admit that I might have failed slightly.

As it happens, a friend of mine was having a bad day last week as well. Their brain was telling them to work, work, while their body was temporarily not up to the challenge. And it occurred to me, that far too often, we need to be given explicit permission to even have a day off.

So here’s me, giving you, dear reader giving you explicit permission to take a day off. Even if it is for just an evening. And I’ll try to remember to take one myself.