up·grade
v. up·grad·ed, up·grad·ing, up·grades
v.tr. 1. To raise to a higher grade or standard.
v.tr. 2. To raise in value, importance, esteem, etc.
I've recently been coming to terms with a lot of imbalance in my life. I've been unpacking what pieces of the imbalance I can control and what pieces are just my OCD DNA and what pieces I created and what pieces are institutional realities of my current workplace and on and on. I'm doing my best to flip the ratios of time spent working and time spent on everything else. Even beyond that, I'm trying to flip the ratios of energy expended for work and energy expended for everything else, which is a far more nuanced game than simply counting hours at the office. We're talking about resetting over a decade of work habits and dismantling paradigms that have governed my unrealistically high standards for my entire life, really.
The paradox is that all my old paradigms are constantly screaming at me about all the ways I'm downgrading by taking on this shift. I'm downgrading my work ethic. I'm downgrading my commitment. I'm downgrading my professional standards. I'm downgrading the true impact I can have at my organization. It's all bullshit though. None of that is true. The truth is that as a more balanced and joyful person, I will be upgrading the experiences I have/create at work, in life, with friends, and so forth. I know that intellectually, but the muscle memory of these entrenched archetypes is brutal to overcome. I know I talked about my creative cocoon recently, but I also feel a bit like an onion right now...peeling back layers and layers and layers of stuff that just doesn't work for me anymore.
Love,
me
