December Daily: accomplishments

[resonant]

I was doing a lot better at staying on top of this before Yuletide went live.

out_there -- What is the accomplishment you're most proud of? Why?

Did you ever notice that when people are asked about their accomplishments, they often name things that are basically relationships? "My marriage!" "My child!" And those things are some of my greatest pleasures, and I suppose I can take credit for the things I haven't done to screw them up, but I don't really feel like they're accomplishments.

It's a bit of a sore spot, actually. Like a lot of us here, I was a kid with a lot of potential, and then I went on to have a career that's been sort of hit or miss, and basically only one hobby (which at the moment I don't have the energy for), and a life that's been pretty ordinary (though a lot of fun), and I can't help feeling, on some level, that at 55 I was supposed to have something bigger to report.

But in fact that's not how I've ever made choices. When I'm making a decision, I don't think, "What will give me a dramatic win if it pans out?" I think, "What will give me a small pleasure or a small increase in capacity?"

So if I think of it that way, I'm very proud of:

- Doing all my yoga therapy exercises every morning and evening, so that now when I sit cross-legged, my right leg actually lies on the floor instead of sticking up at a 45-degree angle while my groin muscle screams.

- Knowing a lot more about how plots work than I knew ten years ago.

- Not being nearly as undone by the departure of my only child as I expected, though it's true that the number of houseplants in my apartment has expanded quite a lot and that my cat now gets canned food and daily playtime.

- Cleaning out that house we left behind (including getting rid of things like a piano and a corporate-grade desk that wasn't supposed to be able to be taken apart and the carry-on bag that the spouse left behind a door which, when hefted, turned out to be full of about forty pounds of miscellaneous coins, some of which were not American coins).

- Not yet in a daily journaling or meditation habit but working on it!

- Any number of last or last-ish lines that make me giggle, and the line, "Ray likes his body to show the touch of human hands, like somebody cares for it, even if it's only himself," which still makes me smile when I think about it.



Still a few days left to comment with a prompt, if so desired! Steal out_there's prompt if you want to do the meme yourself!

28 -- lazaefair -- You’ve just won a Fanfic Oscar. Who do you thank in your acceptance speech and why? And what music do they play you off with?
29 --
30 --
31 --

Comments

[castiron]

and I can't help feeling, on some level, that at 55 I was supposed to have something bigger to report.

Smaller number, but completely identify with this.

[resonant]

That's weirdly reassuring. I don't think of myself as ambitious, but the idea that someone else would judge me achievement inadequate bothers me more than I think it should.

[china_shop]

But in fact that's not how I've ever made choices. When I'm making a decision, I don't think, "What will give me a dramatic win if it pans out?" I think, "What will give me a small pleasure or a small increase in capacity?"

I really like this approach. <3

[resonant]

:)

[out_there]

Those are cool accomplishments. I've never honestly thought of relationships as accomplishments -- to me, it's always some kind of external thing I put effort into that acheived an outcome -- but I love that all of those accomplishments feel so current. They're things you're still working on and achieving. That's pretty cool.

[resonant]

(honestly it's just because I can't remember things.)

[celli]

That's awesome :)

[resonant]

That was a hard question!

[lunabee34]

These are accomplishments to be proud of.

[kass]

There's much here that resonates with me, especially the part about how you've made choices.

[resonant]

It wasn't something I'd thought about until I sat down to consider the question. Your gratitudes seem like a good way of thinking about how to organize a life -- it's not so much having a great achievement as eating a good orange and noticing.

[mekare]

What fic is that line about Ray from? I'd love to read it!

[jesse_the_k]

+1

[resonant]

It's from Adorned. It was one of the things that inspired the entire story, actually.

[jesse_the_k]

Given the sad stories so many of my friends tell of their raising, and the unhappy marriages/pairings/triplings I read everywhere, I want to push back and say: happy kid? happy marriage? Those things are accomplishments. They don't happen, they require work.

Also hooray for quieting the screaming groin muscle. I can't claim I do my stretcing/yoga-ish/pilates-like routine every day, but I'm certainly glad every day that I do it.

[resonant]

Yeah, I keep trying to remind myself of that when I'm tempted to skip a day.