March 24, 2022

 Hello dissertation diary, 

It seems that as soon as I wrote out a commitment to regularly write on this blog my entire writing schedule collapsed. My usual morning writing hasn't recovered since reading week and I've been cycling in and out of frenetic work and complete exhaustion ever since. Today was probably the first day since February that I've felt productive and energetic and it's probably because I've started eating better. 

For me, eating better does not mean any particular commitment to balanced meals or healthy food but just a modest effort to eat more than an apple and some coffee in a day. Managing to get through three meals and some water is a pretty big win for me even though nothing actually stands between me and a proper eating schedule. I've also been too lazy to exercise even though I know it's the best thing for me to do to boost my mood. I went out for a walk for about ninety minutes and that really made me feel like a real person for once. I'm often frustrated by the fact that I just can't seem to follow through with basic care tasks even though they make me feel and perform better. I know that sleeping, eating, exercising, and cleaning are all integral to the kind of energy and focus I need to persist in my work but cleaning is the only thing I can seem to do with any real regularity. Tidying the kitchen every night before bed is the only habit that seems to stick and the others move in and out of my life. 

In many ways, I think this is all very normal. No one is at peak performance 24/7/365 and even the most successful people just have an off-week every once in a while. I know that most academics who talk about their 80 hour weeks have spent a bulk of that time answering emails and staring at word processors and I've matured enough to not let braggarts on Twitter make me feel inadequate, but I still feel a constant pang of guilt and shame over my lack of productivity. The ship of academic success has already sailed off without me and my only real goal is to find any kind of employment at the end of this so the work ethic of a superstar is really none of my business. All I really want is a consistent flow of energy that allows me to get through enough tasks in a day to let me rest without guilt in the evenings and weekends. 

People (well redditors) often note that humans overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term. We all want our success right now and are quick to abandon the little habits and practices of cultivation that lead to steady improvement. I never went to an elite school or went viral so I often feel that my future will never contain success but I'm not even 30 so I should probably calm down on that front. I often worry about how I'm perceived more than what I'm actually doing so I should really shift my focus from other people's perceptions to my own. That's much easier said than done but I long for the liberation that comes with an unabashed desire to just do what one wants no matter the consequences.