While I take a break #101 - The guilt of doing nothing

So here's the thing. I had been a workaholic for the last 16 years. That is ever since I started working. Actually no, that's not true - I have been a workaholic for the last 10 years, ever since I got serious about work. And boy, did I get serious about work. Its last 6 years actually - that would be most precise.

I don't know where it came from - the madness to excel at work. Maybe it was a new challenge thrown at me. Maybe it was because like Sheryl Sandberg says in her book "Lean In", we girls tend to feel the pressure of proving ourselves way more than men. Maybe that's what it was for me when I joined Grocery retail 6 years ago. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't really know much about this part of the world when I got in 6 years ago. Or maybe it was just because I was tired of being a marketer for a decade that when a new opportunity came my way, I just threw myself right in.

Whatever the reason might have been, I worked my butt off and how! And I totally totally enjoyed it too. I mean, it didn't matter how many hours it took or how many weekends were busted, it didn't matter how many social commitments I chose to miss and it didn't matter my MBTI changed from ENFP to ENTP. What mattered was that I liked to make work happen, get things moving, producing results and striving for new challenges. In its own way, it made me feel alive. My mind buzzing. Made me feel "productive" at the end of every day.

And then all of a sudden, in August this year, I decided to quit, without another job in hand. The behind story is for another blog. But I just pressed the brakes and my super active, super productive days came to a screeching halt.

In the beginning I was quite positive about this break. I mean I knew i had to find another job but I figured taking a chill-pill for a bit wouldn't do me any harm. Initially I kept to the routine to waking up at 6:00 am, going for my work out, spending the day on my laptop with something or the other and traveling a bit too. For a month I felt reasonably occupied and satisfied. But then the guilt started seeping in.

And that's what I am perplexed about. The guilt of not really doing anything meaningful started haunting me. That I should spend my days just relaxing, watching TV, connecting with old friends, trying to learn a couple of new things were just not enough to feel like I had spent a productive day. I mean I am certain even as I type this that i feel I am wasting away my days. Doing nothing.

So severe is the impact of this guilt that its pushing me more to do nothing. If that makes any sense. I pick up a book to read but I'm unable to because I realize I am doing so because I am guilty of not reading. Like "whats the point of reading if the reason to read is guilt" kind of a feeling. I watch TV and mid way my guilt takes over that I'm becoming a couch potato so I switch it off. I started pottery classes but have found some excuse or the other to not go in the recent past. I'm trying hard to get attached to Sadhguru but I always find my attention span wavering perhaps because i am doing this with the guilt of doing nothing substantial.

Instead of doing all these things for the joy of doing them. Ideally I should be happily doing nothing and in the joy of nothing-ness perhaps find the pleasure in doing something new. But then again, like someone asked me, where is it written that we HAVE to do something meaningful all the time? I had this discussion with a friend recently where he asked me what really was wrong in not having a productive day? What really is wrong in having achieved nothing for a few days? He asked me why did I feel the pressure to read, to learn, to tick things off  a to-do list during a time I was taking a break.

I honestly didn't have an answer then and don't have an answer now. It just doesn't feel right to do nothing and yet when I had my hands full and more, I yearned for days when I would do nothing.

But anyway, as a consolation, here is a thought to bring me solace. Technically, in the last 6 years, the number of weekends I have busted working, I can actually take about 9.6 months of clean break just as a make up of those many days I've worked extra. Like a compensation break. Like when I was working and those rare weekends that i wasn't working, I wouldn't feel guilty about binge watching, chilling and meeting friends. So technically, for around 10 months, I could be living my lost weekends doing exactly that minus the work weeks in between.

Makes sense?