Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Vol 5, Iss 3: I Can Do That, but Should I?
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Hi friends! At the beginning of this week we had another whirlwind road trip down to Southern California for Nicole’s grandfather’s funeral. With stops, the drive is about seven hours each way so we listened to a lot of podcasts and ate a lot of fries over multiple stops. On our way back up, we stopped at Octavia’s Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Pasadena, where we used to live. Named in honor of Octavia E. Butler, this bookshop highlights BIPOC authors and products from Black-owned businesses. The book selection is expertly curated. I haven’t bought this many books at a single shop in a while and I was musing on how important a well-curated bookshop experience is in helping match the right books with the right readers. We got home late Tuesday night and were each back to work the next morning. We’ve also been going to a friends’ place to feed their cat every evening since Wednesday so needless to say, we are absolutely exhausted. January was a whole 365 days on its own.
A few weeks ago, L. D. Lewis made a post on Bluesky that so succinctly described something I have struggled with for over three decades: “Do you realize how annoying it is to have been raised in a nurturing environment with a "you can do anything you set your mind to" upbringing when it manifests in adulthood as "I should do everything."”
She then had a reply to a comment that was also familiar: “Lol I was literally not allowed to say "I can't" as a kid 😬. It always had to be "I don't know how to" and then submitting myself to learn the thing and now look at me losing my mind in my thirties knowing too much.”
I had these exact experiences and here I am, in my forties, constantly telling myself, “I should do more, I should do more, I should do more.” I was eight when I came home and told my mother I wanted to be an astrophysicist and her reaction wasn’t a rude, “Sure ya do, kid,” but it was a curious, “I’m sure you can be! What does an astrophysicist do?” and she patiently listened as I gave my third-grader understanding of astrophysics. While I was sheltered in a lot of ways, I also had very few limits put on me in other ways. I was definitely not allowed to say, “I can’t” as a kid, not unless I proved that I had tried multiple times.
Being a child raised to believe that I could do anything means I am an adult with a massive amount of confidence, the confidence only expected from cisgender white men. Of course, as a queer Black and Asian woman this means that I’ve been called arrogant by a lot of white people in my lifetime thus far (starting with my third grade teacher). Hasn’t stopped me yet, though!
The “You can do anything!” was a great way to grow up but damn, I really wish I had learned boundaries alongside that. As mentioned above, I constantly struggle in adulthood with the feeling that I should be doing everything. I move through the world with big A Chorus Line “I Can Do That!” energy and then I am overwhelmed by all the things I could possibly be doing.
For the longest time, this resulted in me doing nothing until I learned some boundaries on my own as an adult. Not boundaries with other people, but boundaries with myself. I have not perfected them and I don’t think I ever will so my advice on them in this situation is slim; however, most of my success in (occasionally) overcoming this overwhelm is by slowing down and telling/asking myself a few things:
“I don’t have to do everything.”
“I don’t actually have to do anything aside from the basics.”
“What do I want to do? What would bring me joy?”
“What can I do right now and what can I save for later?”
“What is my next logical step?” and this can be a big question like “What is my next logical step toward the life I want to lead?” or a small one like “What is the next logical step in what I want to achieve this afternoon?”
Do I still think I should be doing everything? Absolutely. Do I still try to do what is probably too many things? Definitely. I work a full-time day job, I freelance for Book Riot, I have a podcast with my wife, and I write this weekly newsletter. This doesn’t count all the cooking and piano-learning and snail mail writing and 30 minutes of daily movement and all the other stuff. So yes, I probably do too many things and perhaps I have learned nothing so if someone could lend me some of their imposter syndrome, that might help tremendously.
In the meantime, I’m going to go research how to start making my own bread and also look into a writing group I want to join and maybe pick out a song to learn on piano alongside the lessons I’m doing.
That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
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