Throughout my life, I have invented so many tiny tasks for myself… that they take most of my life, perhaps giving me nothing in return.
E.g. I started shaving my body when I was a teenager, and I never looked back. What a tremendous amount of time I may have spent doing that! Was it wasted though? I have never considered that being a waste, yet very often these days, when I have no resources for even that, I think: ‘it it worth it?’ Not doing that isn’t an option either. To me, that’s no different to cutting my nails. I cannot not cut my nails. They’d grow to an uncomfortable size, even if I’d learn to tolerate very long nails. I’d have to trim them at one point.
So… perhaps that’s a wrong example, as it’s not really an option. But there are tasks I may not do, yet I continue doing them, for one reason or another.
I wonder, is quitting an option? I’d I arrived to this point, perhaps it’s not, and doing that makes my life simpler, easier, or just a little bit more bearable. But what if that’s an outdated information? What if doing something I’ve been doing for a very long time is just a habit that needs reconsidering? Where is that subtle line?
There are obvious time- or energy-wasters.
For me, recently, that was serving my wife’s mother. She’s an arrogant toxic person, who does not respect others (which stems from her disrespect towards herself), and helping her brings no joy. In the past, I’ve been helping here and there, because I thought that’s a good thing to do: to help, when I can help. Sometimes I did not want to help, but my wife explicitly asked me to, and so I did help her. It took me full 8 years of my marriage to come to the point: fuck her. I’m no longer helping her, and she’s the person I’m not having any communication with. Sometimes, it takes my conscious effort to not help her. I’m a kind and forgiving person, so I think ‘nah, that’s easy for me, why won’t I do that?’ There are cases you have to trust yourself and actually force yourself to not intervene. I’ve made a conscious decision to exclude her from my life, this time completely and for real. I did the same thing with my own mother, because she was too toxic too. It’s a difficult decision one must consider, if one thinks that may help their mental health.
Due to my previous abundant life experience, that wasn’t a surprise to me that this would help. I did a great deal, and I have more energy to myself. Still, not enough to free me from the burden of other tasks, and waste my energy. So, there are other unnecessary tasks in my life.
I wonder, how many of them do I have left? The tasks I can just drop, and free up (fill up?) my, very much depleted already, energy tank.