The Wonderful Act of Living

If you took the time to be present in the world, you would have less stress, anxiety, and fear about the wonderful act of living.

At 22 years old, I spend my days thinking about my to-do list. Sometimes there are 300 items, sometimes 120 - never less than 100 things to do in a month. I section it off into events, friends, personal, school, work, and writing.

I began making to-do lists when I was around 17. At 19, I dug in and started taking it even more seriously. As someone who does at least 10 to 14 things in a day, it’s hard to keep track of it all if I don’t write it down. Writing it down also gives me the reward of crossing it off when it’s done. While it is fun to look back at a to-do list and say to myself, ‘wow, we did 300 things this month, it only felt like 20’, the process of getting those 300 things done is often not fun at all. It requires levels of self-discipline, sacrifice, and maturity I do not think I should have just yet. However, the joy siphoning doesn’t even begin with the process of getting things done. It begins immediately after completing the preliminary to-do list. That is, whenever I first make my to-do lists, I am filled with feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear.

I am stressed because of just how many things there are to do in a month, especially at the start of a school semester. Just looking at everything I have to do sometimes sends me into a state of shock. February this year, in my writing section alone, there were 100 things to do: poems, prose, plays, the usual. The school section, 120, exams, exams, and exams. Personal section was a heavy 50, it's usually 20 or 25, but it was a busy month. We started the month looking at 270 things to do. By the end of the first week of every month, I take note of all the things my friends and family need from me, and the events I must attend or will try to attend out of support. By the end of that first week of February, my total list had increased to 303. Shortest month of the year, I was stressed before it even began, and that did not include the mundane, unpredictable, and often inconvenient tasks that pop up when living life. I was fine, though. People do more than I do in a week than I do in a month, and they run the world.

I am anxious because I try to do all 300 things in one week, despite knowing in my heart that it is not physically or mentally possible. If you were to ask Jamaican children what is the one thing they never want an adult to catch them doing, 9/10 times that child will say ‘nothing’. “Yo no hav homework”, “wha ya siddun yasso when house duty”, even when you have done all that you can do in a day, and you decide to sit down and do nothing, some older person will come to you and say that because you are relaxing, you will never be successful. Busy children are rewarded, and so at 22, though I cannot, though it brings me great anxiety, I try to do 300 things in a day. But I always calm myself down, I tell myself that people do more than I do in a week than what I do in a month, and they run the world.

I am afraid that I will not be able to complete my tasks by the self-imposed deadline. I am afraid that I will complete my tasks, but not to the level of my satisfaction. I am afraid that if my tasks are completed to my satisfaction, the deliverables will not be good enough for whoever they are to be delivered to. I am afraid that I will fail, and that upon failing, the earth shall shake beneath my feet and swallow me whole for not being good enough, for not meeting the bar that has been set by me. I am afraid most of all that all my work, all my effort, all my tasks will be for nothing more than my stress and anxiety. I don’t have anything to tell myself to ignore my fear, so I just live with it.

July is my birth month; it is historically my laziest month. I do not do much in July except for the odd work assignment and writing. When July came to a close this year, and I tallied up all the things I had done, it came up to 193. I was shocked, not because of the number, but more because at no point throughout July did I feel stressed, anxious, or afraid. I looked through the tasks. On the surface, it all looked normal, but when I dug deeper into the type of things I was doing, I realized that the majority of them required me to be present in the moment. It wasn’t the three weeks of studying needed for an exam at the end of the month, broken down into ten individual tasks. It was the concerts I treated myself to. It wasn’t a list of poems to write because in July, I told myself to just relax. After all, we’re going to take it easy in August so we can focus on School. It wasn’t spending nights alone in a pensive mood about my loneliness and lack of a lover; it was days and weeks spent with friends idling about. Of the 193 things I did in July, I added organically; the month started at 100. I went to poetry shows, concerts, fairs, trips, and more. I simply enjoyed the act of living for 31 days. Then I sat down to make my August and September to-do lists, and after completing the August one, the stress, anxiety, and fear that had left me alone all of July returned.

I stopped myself and realized that if I took the time to be present in the world, I would have less stress, anxiety, and fear about the wonderful act, that is, living.

Platt