The Perils Of The "Do It All" Mentality
It seems that everyone in London is doing it all. It’s an inevitable symptom of the intermittent heatwaves, the blossoming of what could finally be hot girl summer, the resurgence of festivals, of hot sweaty warehouse parties, of not just being able to drink pints in the park (but plenty of that, too). I write this on a train to Cornwall, my carriage full of approximately half the city of London, happily packed like tinned sardines, suitcases blocking doorways and a general BST mood floating around. My mind is foggy, owing to a packed Saturday of socialising, multiple bottles of wine and a generous amount of sun.
I have certainly been attempting to do it all. According to my Google calendar, I’ve been out almost 15 out of 21 nights in the past two weeks. Call it a loud method of distraction – the more I am out, the more I do, the more I see people; and the less I have to sit with my sadness. In so many ways the months have passed by so quickly, almost as if they didn’t happen. They feel like ghosts, like I’m grasping at the whispers of them, trying to capture these moments that I hoped would prove I am better off and much happier, which I’m sure I am, even if I can’t quite grasp the outlines of what that looks like yet.
Is it a universal affliction – to spread ourselves thin? To give so much of our time away for fear of wasting it alone, under the covers, purposeless, shapeless. Is it the problem that comes with living a life online – a need to share, prove, post and reflect our experiences. It’s not just social but economical – I find myself taking on more work than I’m able to deliver, not just greedy for the salary but fearful that saying no will result in some sort of karmic retribution where all my work will dry out and I’ll no longer be able to afford my rent or to live in this wild, whirling city.
Of course, like everyone else, I know that spreading myself thin is unsustainable and something to avoid at all costs. To draw an obvious food-related parallel, no one likes a thinly spread sandwich. Thick pats of soft butter, layered folds of ham, generous dollops of mayonnaise that many might describe as too much, a smear of wholegrain mustard and piles of crunchy lettuce: much more preferable to a single wafer thin slice and nothing else.
I find the term ‘burn out’ to be both misused and over-egged. Much like the therapy vernacular we constantly parrot (“I’m so triggered, this is my trauma!”), being ‘burnt out’ often lands as an excuse to act badly (guilty). Of course there are people who are genuinely burnt out, so I’m trying not to lean too much on the term, because I’m not actually burn out, just the victim of my own obsession with people-pleasing and saying yes to everything. I recently wrote about being a chaotic person, and feeling like I’m constantly telling people that “things are so hectic!!!”, as if I’m not in control of any of the chaos (mostly I create it).
I wonder where my ‘do it all’ mentality comes from; is it because I want to be seen as impressive and busy? Or is it really because I’d prefer not to spend hours on my own scrolling through pictures I shouldn’t be searching for, or listening to the voice notes or reading text messages from before when my heart was a little more whole? Likely a combination of both. When I was younger, I used to schedule everything in two hour slots – this was practical, because I didn’t actually live in the city and I’d have to fit people in before getting the last train home to my parents. I’ve gotten back into the habit, seeing four or five people in one day, spending money on multiple meals, soaking up as much of the sun as I can for fear that it won’t come back the next day.
Sometimes I manage to distract myself with cooking – usually breakfasts before the sun creeps into my living room, but I’ve realised that with the long days and return of sunshine, comes my obsession to not waste a second of it. My day revolves around it. As soon as I see a patch of blue skies when I wake up, I’m rushing to the bus to get to the ponds. I race back home to start my work day but have to be sat in direct sunlight, as it streams into my flat between 10.30am and 2.30pm. As soon as the sun dips behind the building next to mine, so does my mood, and my need to do something, anything, amplifies.
It’s probably why I don’t cook as much during summer, because I hate feeling trapped in my kitchen when I should be lying outside with a book (the irony of meticulously planning taking time to lie languorously in the grass is not lost on me; Type A personalities, I see you, I am you). Cooking is usually a happy distraction. But in summer, it can feel like something that’s stopping me from doing it all.
Inevitably, this feeling of ‘doing it all’ falls away as soon as I leave London. As we fly by the patchwork fields, and lush bushy trees, onwards to the coast, I can feel myself relaxing. It’s the biggest and truest cliché – that getting into nature can completely transform your stress levels. I’m thinking about the food I’ll prepare out by the van on a little trip with a good friend later this week – returning from a sunset swim and cooking up something simple in a pan on a little camping stove, the heat still lingering. I’m thinking about the Gilmore’s fish burrito that’s awaiting me at the other end of this train journey – eaten on the beach with one of my closest friends, beer in hand, the salt crystallising on our skin.
Outside of the city, doing it all often means doing nothing and enjoying it, bouncing from beach to beach, squeezing in a sunrise swim or a maybe a surf if you’re lucky; eating outside and getting bits of work done in the in-between moments, so you can dedicate your full day to coastal walks and diving into bodies of water.
I know that as soon as I return to London, this take-a-breath mentality will give way to the do-it-all one, and I’m not sure what the answer is. For now, I’ll write a piece that I’ve been putting off for weeks on this sunlit train journey, snack on a bagel bought from the deli and think about how the next week will be full of promise.