Lately, my days have been bursting full with tasks, to-dos and urgency. This time has led me to ponder, for the umpteenth time, why is busyness so celebrated in America? My contemporaries (Gen X) began our working years in a culture where the amount you worked was synonymous with your worth. For many of us, this experience was preceded by high school and college years laden with pressure to succeed and overachieve. Society hammered us repeatedly that success was happiness. We were encouraged to not only strive for the top, but to get there faster and better than anyone else. Bonus points for women if we could do it all in high heels. We were trained to always give it our all. No matter what.
It is obvious that this misguided ethos is now even further entrenched in American society. Deadlines, metrics, algorithms, dashboards, productivity hacks – our lives are ruled by these things. While all of these “tools” are touted as beneficial, it also really changes how we work, live and learn. Speaking for myself, it is exhausting. Burnout is real and quality suffers when everything is rushed. Not to mention that when we are so busy and our time is a commodity to be measured, we quickly lose sight of the small joys in life. Which scares me for I never want to lose my awe.
As a crafty gal, folks continually ask me if I sell the things I make. While it is incredibly kind of people to believe my creations are worthy of being exchanged for money, right now, it is not feasible. I love to make, but creativity is the antidote to my busy bill paying job. If I were to start monetizing my creations, then this time would feel less free. There would be a pressure to produce instead of to explore and learn. To be truly effective as a small artisan, I’d also have to implement those aforementioned “tools” into my sewing life. It would literally change everything about how, and why, I make right now. That all said, it is crucial that creative businesses thrive. In an age of ever increasing mass production and homogenization, supporting small art businesses is essential. I give humongous props to people who run small artistic businesses.
As much as sewing is the antidote to the day job and is only for myself, it is hard to not carry the same workday mentality into the creative facets of my life. I’ve mentioned before that whenever I rush, I end up with regrets. Plural. Yet I continually have to remind myself that there are no deadlines in the sewing room; there are no quilting emergencies. It is a-okay that the to-do list from last year still has a lot of unchecked boxes. A couple of my recent projects are big, time intensive quilts that require patience and the right mindset. In the interim, I’m enjoying the process of sewing small projects, especially using my new bounty of fancy decorative fabric. A couple of purses and pillow covers later, I’m learning how different materials work. The small extra steps (yay for stay stitching!) really make a difference. Because I am taking my sweet, old time.
I love it when a song lodges itself in my head just when I need it most, like Give it What You Can, another gem from most beloved band The Meters. Coinciding with my rumination on busyness, I thought, what if giving it our all isn’t what we’re supposed to do? I mean giving it your all evokes images of tattered athletes staggering across a finish line barely upright. I see images of dark circles under eyes and a frazzled energy. I correlate “your all” with major depletion. What if instead of our all, we’re supposed to give it what we can? Oh heck yes, this sounds so much more restorative and realistic, more honest and human (and humane!). What you can implies that some days there is more and some days there is less. What you can allows one to be multifaceted. Giving what you can also applies to how we interact within our community and our charitable acts. As I continually adjust and recalibrate my life, I am smitten with this idea of giving what I can. Gee thanks Meters for sharing so much wisdom, so much love and truth along with all of the soul and funk! I look forward to incorporating even more of your lyrics into my life. How awesome to have music that not only makes life beautiful, but also helps it make a whole lot more sense.
Quiltunes 