Nothing Due Today

A life organized around a to-do list takes the joy out of living. There's always stuff to do, obviously: somebody has to wash the dishes, sweep, go grocery shopping, get that cabinet door fixed.

The problem is not the to-do list itself. It's the timing of tasks. I tend to do things whenever the stars and my brain chemistry get aligned and I actually want to do them. When I was living alone, dishes tended to pile up, laundry got unmanageable, the fridge was empty and I had to push things over on the table to make space to sit down to eat. Then, on a random morning, my mind was right and I powered through it all and left the place spotless. Suddenly there were no 'tasks', it was all joy.

Those weren't days where I finally became responsible. They were days where doing things actually felt good.

It probably started as an ADHD thing, but after almost fifty years, it's just part of who I am: If I have to do something, I don't want to. And that "I don't want to" becomes extremely hard to overcome. Nobody understands that it's not just stubbornness, but an inability to get started. Forcing me usually ends badly for me and everyone else, because my mental state goes to shit.

So I go through life just "vibing". Tasks that get urgent are done easily because the urgency enables me, but there's always a level of disarray on everything else. And you know what? It's OK. I've made peace with that.

I think this is why I don't have a problem with work. Work has clear boundaries. It starts, it ends, and everything have defined priorities. Life, on the other hand, keeps whispering about the dishes, the emails, the appointment you should schedule, the cabinet door you still haven't fixed. It never feels finished.

Everything is so much work, except for work.

It's not fair to the people around me, though. I know that. Relationships need reliability, and reliability isn't exactly my superpower.

I can wholeheartedly agree to do something, even plan it for a future date, but when the date gets close, I don't know if I'm gonna be on the same page. When I go on vacation, I don't like to plan things. Some days I might feel like I just want to chill in the hotel room for most of the day instead of going sightseeing. And that's a joyful thing to me. A vacation isn't the place. It's the state of mind. If I'm pressed to still keep a to-do list, what's the point of vacationing?

That's what I mean when I say I want a calmer life. Not fewer responsibilities. Just fewer obligations attached to specific moments. The happiest version of me is the one that doesn't owe the day anything.