“i deserve this”

hi hey hello!

i recently began reading “eat pray love” by elizabeth gilbert and man oh man is it ever a great read!!!

for me personally, in many many ways, i feel like it’s speaking directly to where i’m at and have been mentally in the past little while. it also really makes me wish that travelling was more accessible right now, because i so badly feel like i need to get myself out of my own little reality and be pushed outside of my comfort zone… meeting new people and being reminded of how much i can really enjoy my own company. of course, the reality is that i can find ways to do this without travelling, but having that physical change of scenery outside of my daily norm just makes it so much easier.

anyway, i could go on about that, but i felt compelled to write today about a specific chapter in the book, chapter 21, which sent me in an interesting thought trail that i’d like to explore a bit deeper, here, with you.

if you aren’t familiar with the story, liz goes to italy first in order to experience and learn pleasure. she explains how in north america, we find our worth in hard work and productivity, but italians find their worth in the simple pleasures and, even more simply, the ability to “do nothing”. she even mentions this beautiful expression they have - bel far niente - “the beauty of doing nothing”.

there were a few thoughts that really stuck with me in this chapter where she really explores this truth; how we are entertainment-seeking and not necessarily pleasure-seeking… how we overwork ourselves and seem to enjoy it until we burnout and essentially go into the extreme nothingness that’s more distraction than it is pleasure… and how we even have this guilt around enjoying the things we’ve worked towards because we feel like we haven’t worked hard enough.

we have this cultural thought of “i’m gonna enjoy this thing because i worked hard enough to earn it” … essentially, “i deserve this”. but, really, i think we are so stuffed up with this lie that we need to earn the things we enjoy that we never actually feel as if we do deserve them…

why do we have to feel that way? i think the reality is that we will never “work hard enough”, but that’s because there is no clear scale for what that even means. it is impossible to measure up to a standard is either undefined or has a variety of definitions. we can never know for sure if we measure up.

but the point i want to make here is that we don’t have to.

this is something i’m really trying to learn, myself. i am so victim to the thought that i am only “good enough” if i’m “doing enough”. if i am not wasting my time. if i am efficient and productive and working hard towards something that measures up to what is expected of me.

the worst part of that is that i don’t know what is expected of me. i have never been told what that is, and i can’t figure it out for myself. sometime i feel like i’m running on this track with no end destination. just a continuous loop that i hope one day will get me “where i’m supposed to be”. i think a lot of people can relate to that.

i have a lot to learn still in the acceptance and knowledge that where i am right now is exactly “where i’m going”, and that i am allowed to honestly enjoy life’s pleasures right now because they are there and that’s that. and no, i may not have done anything to necessarily “deserve them”… but that’s okay!

sure, rewards are nice and important for recognizing good things we’ve done. and yes, work can be good… but we are in an extreme unbalance where we worship hard work and productivity so much that our own self-esteem and mental health is being sacrificed. we are being fed this message that we need to keep chasing these invisible expectations and somehow reach them before we allow ourselves to really be happy. that’s a dangerous game to play once we realize that the chase doesn’t have a final destination.

so let’s be happy now.

it doesn’t take much. there’s so much around us, right now, that we can enjoy. when i talk about pleasure, i’m not talking about anything we tend to binge on and distract ourselves from - what we i’d define as entertainment.

what real pleasure exactly is is hard to define. but another italian expression mentioned in the book is l’arte d’arrangiarsi - “the art of making something out of nothing.” and boy oh boy do we have a whole lot of nothings right now. there is so much opportunity for us to create joy right now and that’s really what i want to be focusing on.

the “nothing” can feel really limiting. i feel it so hard most of the time. but it’s important to practice seeing opportunity in it, and beginning to pursue the joy that comes in creativity.

i am choosing to see the beauty and opportunity in the nothing… maybe i’ll start by adapting my “travel mindset” where i am, right here. exploring what is accessible to me right now and pushing outside of what’s comfortable.

what will you do?

until next time!
take care,
skye