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Telling Myself A Different Story

by Ruth Ann Harnisch on 03/11/10 at 1:44 pm

Day 70

My houseguest asked yesterday, “What is the difference between what you do on your sabbatical and what you do when you are working?  Because last year, when you are working, you are on the computer.  When you are on sabbatical, you are also on the computer.”

That’s easy.  What I’m doing on the computer now is for fun, for my pleasure, for my entertainment or enlightenment.  What I was doing on the computer last year was work.  I was doing for others, and the details were usually not so much fun.  Although my work was/is entirely my choice, I was doing far too many tasks that drained my energy and far too few that energized and excited me.

Now if I choose to play a game of  Hold ‘Em , I do so without feeling any guilt that I “should” be doing something more productive. 

Now when I write I’m doing it for fun, for my own pleasure, to keep an agreement with myself that adds to my feelings of personal integrity. 

Now my email is mostly correspondence I want to have, not material I “have to” process.

When (or as some of you keep saying, “if”) my sabbatical ends, I want my current relationship with my computer to continue.  In this iteration of the relationship, I feel like the boss.  Yes, I know, I’ve always been the boss.  The difference is in my attitude, and the story I’m telling myself.

What other stories need a rewrite?

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Bonus link on the power of the story we tell ourselves:

 TED Fellow  Daniela Candillari  wrote an essay on performance anxiety  in which she describes how she went from a confident, happy performer to a frightened and insecure one, and how she reversed course after a decade of suffering.