It’s January for almost two more weeks so this topic is still timely. I’d write it even if it weren’t timely because content lives forever on the web and it’ll be timely o’clock somewhen. But it’s still January and we’re all in-with-the-newing. Making room for new stuff means getting rid of old stuff or at least cycling stuff around. I brought the sweaters down from the attic (my partner did, I should say) and swapped them with the spring-summer-fall tops. That’s why it was 50 degrees today, because I put the mild-weather clothes away.
Fair warning, in case the title didn’t give it away. Today’s article is half of a two-parter. Word count got out of hand to the extent that the article spontaneously split into two. The scientific term for this is mitosis.
Everyone is working with a finite quantity of resources: Personal bandwidth, money, energy, time. People have more or less of each than others but nobody has an infinite amount of any. Everybody has a limit to how much they can read, write, and do.
My simple premise is we should marshal our limited resources into things that serve us and not waste energy on things that do not serve us. This may be things that have never served us or things that no longer serve us. Put your time and energy into things that pay back to you, that better you and enrich you. Do not put time and energy into things that don’t return anything on your investment. Things that serve you are those that bring you happiness, support your well-being, and further your meaningful goals.
First, reject the truism, “we all have the same 24 hours in a day.” Sure we all start with 24 hours in a literal sense but that doesn’t mean everyone has the same 24 hours in a day to use for the things they want to do. Everybody has to sleep, for instance, that’s a biological fact, but not everybody has to sleep the same amount. The person who stays healthy on five hours of sleep per night has more usable time in their 24 hours than the person who needs eight hours of sleep per night to stay healthy.
Everybody needs food to live and most people need shelter (depends where you live, to be fair). Those things require money. Some people are independently wealthy and some people have to spend some of their 24 hours (most days) exchanging labor for money. The person who does not need to exchange labor for money to exchange for food to stay alive has more time to devote to the things they want to do than—most of us. Money absolutely buys time; anyone who says it doesn’t is wrong. In the United States, money buys access to health care to give you the best chance at more time on the planet.
Some people are fortunate to double up and use their labor hours (that pay for their subsistence) to pursue their dreams. These might be people like successful authors who sell enough books for a living. Writing might be their day job as well as their passion. I’m happy for them.
Acknowledging that not everybody has the same amount of time to devote to pursuits other than the ones that keep us sheltered, fed, in good health, and our families likewise, most people have some amount of time and other resources left over after exchanging hours for subsistence—whatever subsistence means to any given person. The time left over is what we use on the things we want to do with our lives, the things that we enjoy and find meaningful. That time should be devoted to things that serve us and not things that don’t, is what I’m saying.
A caveat: I said things; there are special considerations when it comes to people. People are not things. I’m definitely in favor of ending human relationships that aren’t healthy, just sometimes you have to give more and different consideration to how you let go of those relationships, a topic I am not on today.
I’m talking about things like habits, goals, resolutions, grudges, hopes, and fears. In a specific writerly sense I am also talking about old works in progress and finished work that doesn’t represent the writing skills you have now, old writing processes, writing (and writing-adjacent) commitments, ideas you’re keeping on life support, and so on.
Another caveat: I’m not going to make a value judgment about what serves you or doesn’t serve you. Everyone has to decide that for themself. I won’t weigh in on whether hanging on to something is “healthy” or not—if you have a vendetta that serves you by delivering motivation? Keep that for all I care; I’m not your therapist. Are you driven to do the things that give your life meaning by a burning desire to show them all? I don’t care. I’m not anybody’s therapist. My PhD is in internet memes.
Third caveat: I can no longer claim to have a PhD in internet memes as a joke because I once said it so candidly that someone believed me and I think passing myself off as a doctor might be illegal, I’m not sure. Disclaimer: I am not a doctor of any kind. Fourth caveat: I used to be a book doctor, a real job that people have in the publishing industry (or part of one). From here we can go forth without further caveats.
When you put resources into stuff that doesn’t serve you, you drain those resources with no return and that will make you feel sad, mad, and bad. And tired, although it does not rhyme with the others. For instance:
I made a commitment to do X but I regret it. I’m continuing it even though there is no short-term or long-term return for me, because I said I would. I dread having to work on X and simultaneously feel guilty about procrastinating.
Now, sometimes we don’t want to do stuff but there is a return on the resource investment. I don’t always want to write but I recognize that writing regularly returns on my investment of time and energy in the form of improvement in my writing skill. In the moment I don’t want to write but I see that writing serves. I am not saying you just chuck out everything you don’t want to do or that feels uncomfortable. You have to evaluate whether something actually is serving your ultimate ends.
I’ll fill in the for-instance. A lot of years ago I joined a small, career-adjacent association. When elections came around I was appointed to some board position—I don’t remember which one—and when I accepted, the time commitment rose substantially. I realized the reason I joined in the first place (networking opportunities) did not support the increased workload but I hung onto it because I felt a sense of obligation to the commitment I had made to the association. The commitment I made in joining the organization started out as something that supported my goals and served me but evolved into a drain on my resources that did not serve me. I kept it too long before letting it go because I didn’t have a good handle on all this at the time.
The result was several months or a year of carrying around this obligation that would flick me on the forehead periodically to remind me that I had work piling up and I was letting people down by not getting on top of it. I had internalized the belief that quitting something is always bad and everything begun has to be seen through, or at least given “a fair shake” before giving up.
This is one of the worst things you can believe. If you come away from this two-parter ready to jettison one thing let it be the belief that quitting something is some kind of moral failure. Disabuse yourself of this no-good, very bad belief right now. Put in the garbage. Do not recycle. Do not compost. Like nuclear waste, this is too dangerous to release back into the environment. Put it on a rocket ship and fire it into the sun, which I assume is what we do with nuclear waste, based on cartoons I’ve seen.
Giving up on things that aren’t working is great for you. Let me give some examples.
“I haven’t been at this job long enough to leave and start a different one, it’ll look bad on my resume.” Quit and start the different job. If you work eight hours a day that’s one third of your life which is too much time to spend miserable because of how your resume might look.
“I haven’t been excited about my novel for a while, and I want to start something different, but I’m already 30,000 words in—I can’t just give up.” Yes you can. Stuff that manuscript in a drawer and forget about it for now or forever. Work on something you’re passionate about.
“This critique group isn’t giving me what I hoped for, but quitting will let the other members down.” It’s fine to try things out and move on if they don’t work for you. The other members will get by without you or the group will fall apart—and so what if it does? If the group was holding together thanks to the labor of someone who was not getting a reasonable return then that group deserves to fall apart.
Most people I meet seem to have baggage that we’re hang onto for a handful of stupid reasons. I mean, everyone has their own specific stupid reasons but they all mostly fall into four broad headings:
Nostalgia—I remember a time when this thing was serving me well and perhaps it will again someday.
Sunk costs—I’ve put too much into this thing to lose my investment even though it doesn’t serve me.
Obligation—I have to do this thing even though it doesn’t serve me or I will face a consequence.
Habit—I’ve always done (or had) this thing, and it may not serve me, but I don’t know how to get rid of it.
In Tuesday’s part two I’ll unpack these umbrella reasons one by one. We’ll look at why they make us hold onto stuff we’d be better off without; identify which of these reasons is the likely culprit when we’re using baggage as a life preserver like Tom Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990); and learn some tricks for overcoming each one when it’s the nefarious force dragging us down.
Till then stay warm, or stay cool. Stay the opposite temperature of whatever the weather is doing. I hope you have climate control for the apocalypse.
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