As you probably don’t know, these posts were, momentarily, delivered to your inboxes on Wednesdays (with weekly recaps on Sundays). This was the self-established schedule I’d prescribed to maintain my relationship with writing and set forth some sort of proven dependability. I wanted this schedule to quietly prove that I am capable of writing a few thousand words every week. I wanted this schedule to prove that I am finally prioritizing the one thing I’ve always loved and deeply desired but have continued to make excuses about for two decades. I wanted this schedule to prove that I’m a writer—or, at least, that I could be.

So it comes as a surprise that, after only six posts, I haven’t written anything in over three weeks.

I imagine this means very little to you, dear reader, because, rightfully so, I’m sure it did not occur to you that I’d already missed my scheduled publishing dates thrice now. Even more likely, it probably did not occur to you that there might be a schedule to begin with. The same way that neither you nor I noticed our friend’s zit at that dinner party last week—the one they silently obsessed over, hovering their hand by their mouth just so to keep it covered—because we were focused instead on ourselves, fidgeting with our own awkward haircut and the shirt button missing right between our breasts.

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Knowing that, I am not writing this foreword for you (but do please keep reading). I am writing this foreword for myself because, to allow myself to publish another post, I must first acknowledge that I have already failed. This is a flaw in my own chemical makeup, my own desire for quiet excellence. I know I am not perfect, therefore I am (perfect). That’s what Descartes said, right?

This failure has been plaguing me increasingly as I get further from my original publishing date. Knowing that my arbitrary schedule has no real impact on anyone else, and that the lapse in schedule has even less significance, I’m further bothered by just how much it bothers me.

This obsession, coupled with returning to set after a few quiet months, has me evaluating my ceaseless self-demand for productivity.

I work in film and television production, an industry I entered accidentally at 23. An industry that I have a lot of love for, but one that relies on 12-hour work days—often much longer—and on crew members overextending themselves. An industry that, by design, rarely accounts for or appreciates humanity in any way except in the final narrative you see on screen. Though I believe that most people get into this industry because of their fascination with people and their very human stories, the industry slowly knocks that out of you. Where your desire to change the world by story once was, one day you instead find a forced desire for alien levels of energy and focus, fueled by external demands for more, more, more.

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While the entertainment industry is a glaring offender and the one I know best, I think this craving for productivity is an almost inescapable byproduct of modern society. With technology’s rapid progression, it seems that the goal of humanity has been reduced to speed and quantity. To efficiency. To building a faster world, not a better one.

It’s hard to keep from pursuing that golden fleece that is productivity. It’s addictive. It makes us feel successful. Worthy. Valued. It makes us feel, well, productive.

But after, when we’re burnt out or coming down from the high of extreme productivity, we tend to feel that we aren’t doing enough or achieving enough. That we ourselves are not enough. Like a drug that we’ve come to rely on, the lows of its absence can be devastating.

I notice this feeling in coworkers who experience visibly higher levels of stress in moments on set that are less stressful, moments when less is demanded of them and there is less for them to do. I notice this in myself, too, when I walk around my house, commenting on all of the things I should be doing:

“I should have gotten up early to write today,” I announce, after a fourteen hour day on set with another one the next day.

“I really should wash those dishes,” I say on my way to bed at 11pm with three dishes in the sink.

“I need to get rid of those weeds,” I say every time I glance at the weed-riddled corner of the backyard that no one else notices.

I say all of this aloud, to myself or whoever is listening, as if I get a point for acknowledging what it is that I’m not doing. At least if I know I’m not doing enough, I’m not as bad as I could be. This is not only extremely agitating to whoever is around me (sorry) but also harmful for my relationship with myself. I lament the work I’m not doing constantly, as if rest is a capital sin, whether it’s missing a Pilates class or piling clean laundry on the bed instead of into drawers.

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It’s not surprising that this thought pattern is harmful to my relationship with myself. In fact, this thought pattern is a direct result of a neglected self relationship. This thought pattern comes from a repeated reliance on external validation, on achieving value by doing something that can be measured by someone or something else. This pattern shows how little I have come to value time working on and for myself.

I hadn’t realized this until my recent return to set. Work had been slow for me all summer with the industry strikes, but as I fell quickly back into the vortex that is production, I noticed the contrast between my working self, the person I’d been for years, and the self that I’d been rediscovering during the quiet summer months.

During my time away from production this summer, without the distraction of that wheel that never stops turning, I had started doing things for myself again.

Originally, during the withdrawal, I felt worthless and bored. Incapable of doing enough to earn any sort of self-value because I’d become accustomed to placing my value in the external. But as time went on, I started spending more time finding value in my days and in myself. I prioritized moving my body and noticing what that movement felt like traveling through my limbs. I read books in the middle of the day. I listened to full albums. I walked the dogs without listening to podcasts, slowing that constant influx of information I’ve been feeding myself for years. I started writing this Substack. I began training to become a certified Pilates instructor. I began to act again out of love and curiosity for myself, giving my time to things that I simply enjoyed for the sake of enjoyment.

But how quickly I saw the threat of all my self-work falling away with that first job back on set. I stopped breathing. I stopped noticing how my body felt. I stopped prioritizing moving and sensing and writing, instead lasering in on productivity. On being the most reliable. The quickest. On the bottomless need for more and more information—needing all of it—and getting swept up in the frustration that comes with demanding more of people than they can give. I needed more focus, more thought, from everyone, and I, myself, needed to be more. And it felt good, the stress of it. I felt needed. I felt valuable.

But one night, when talking of meditation with a friend who has been in the industry much longer than I have, and whose position puts more pressure on his shoulders than I have on mine, I remembered to breathe.

Listening to his methods of grounding and breathing reminded me that humanity is the goal. That noticing myself and my body and all of the life and color and sound around me—that is the real goal. Being. Not productivity, and especially not productivity at the expense of humanity. I was inspired by the space he creates to love himself and the importance he places on that. I considered how quickly I traded that in for the first opportunity of productivity and why.

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It’s easy for me to blame our society or my industry when considering how I’ve gotten to this point of such high, constant self-demand, but blaming it on something else takes away the agency I have to change it. The reason I am so bothered by this lapse in my writing schedule is the same reason I crave so badly to be productive in every aspect of my life. Because I’ve decided that my worth is a result of everyone seeing how much I do and how well I do it. Instead of loving and delighting in myself and the things that delight me, I’m waiting to be loved, envied even, by everyone else.

The thing is, deep down, I know that I’m good enough. Whether that was drilled into my head by my parents when I was young or I was just born with an inordinately big head, that’s something I’ve always known. So how do I get back to living that belief? To letting myself rest and breathe instead of pushing myself to be exist in a state of constant, extreme productivity? How do I strip away this need for external validation and just sit, happily, with myself?

I don’t have the answer for that yet.

But if I had to guess, I’d guess it comes from practice. From resisting the urge to tell my boyfriend that I did vacuum today even if the house looks like a mess again. From letting myself guiltlessly skip an 8am Pilates class if I didn’t sleep well the night before. From reminding myself that I’m still good enough even if I don’t publish a post every Wednesday. Or that I’m good enough if I don’t send that email before someone else thinks of it or if I spend a day at home and don’t deep clean the house and bathe the dogs and cook a four-course meal. I know I have to practice these things because even now, as I type, I feel myself recoiling at the thought of these things being “enough.” But they are enough. Living is enough.

So this letter comes to you, weeks late, on a Tuesday afternoon instead of a Wednesday morning. And the same may happen next week, or in two weeks. I apologize for the times I’ll get off schedule, but it’s probably going to happen, and it’s going to be okay.

In the meantime, I’ll be listening to more music that makes me dance and staying in bed longer than I should to snuggle my dog. I might even start leaving Post-its lying around saying things like “You’re enough,” but no—I probably won’t do that.