I don’t want self-care.
I don’t want to draw myself a bath or put my own oxygen mask on.
I don’t want to learn to meditate, and I definitely don’t want to add five more self-care tasks to my to-do list and then feel guilty when I inevitably don’t do them.
I get why people talk so much about self-care. It’s better than the alternative of taking care of everything for everyone else, and draining yourself in the process. But we forget there’s another option!
There are three ways to avoid running on empty:
Drain yourself less. Have less to do and fewer people to take care of—you know, if you’re open to, say, giving away your kids or quitting your job. Easy!
Take care of yourself more. This is self-care as we’re taught it—take time to rest and recharge, meditate, rock those essential oils, all while suppressing the mental alarm bells going off in your brain about everything you’re not getting done. Good luck!
Get OTHERS to take care of YOU! Now we’re talking. Yes, please I will accept that oxygen mask being held out for me. I thank you for that bubble bath. And while you’re at it, can you magically take care of the 20 different open tabs in my brain— schedule that appointment, renew my car registration, figure out where to throw my kid’s birthday party, send a wedding present, and while you’re at it, I’ll take a massage appointment, please! Put it on repeat, thanks.
Now, don’t get me wrong—my husband takes very good care of me. So do my friends, and my daughter, too. But, when I had a super annoying insurance thing to figure out, I was 90% sure my friends didn’t want to do it for me, and outsourcing to my 10-year-old daughter seemed risky. But Duckbill was into it, and that was AWESOME. One day I had an annoying task that I couldn’t scrub off my to-do list, causing me around the clock anxiety (oh, is that mental load?) and the next day, I didn’t! Done.
I firmly believe we need others to take care of us, and that we deserve to be enjoying our days. As Duckbill says: Life is short. Make it fun.
I wrote a book about how to find more pleasure in our work and our lives: Today Was Fun. For a book about joy, there’s a fair bit of existential dread, and that’s because when we spend our days trying to fend off to-do’s like they’re a circle of ninjas closing in around us, we’re only living in threat-detection-stress-reduction-just-make-it-to-tomorrow mode. And that’s no way to live. We deserve more than getting through the week. We deserve to be having fun!
If you think so too, get on over here! Pre-order Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously), forward your order receipt to todaywasfun@breegroff.com, and get a code for 3 free Duckbill tasks.