The power of accomplishment is real. That sense of completion is powerful, it can land as relief, joy, spaciousness and a million other things – yet all offer a rush of feelings. And lately I’ve been wondering if perhaps we’re all a little addicted to it. I love to check an item off my to do list and recently my lists got very overwhelming. It happens to us all, even when we’re deep in things we love doing it is still “doing” all the things in a finite amount of time.
I found myself deep in the mucky middle of many things at the same time, and very much missing the ‘wins’ of completion that are big in Spring and Fall in my world. And then in a moment that felt like a big a-ha, I recognized my inner voice celebrating when I was caught up on a podcast (completed in a way). Finished a book. Watched all of a Netflix series. Finished the last of the hummus.
I needed to feel complete, and I was chasing that need like my dog chases squirrels – with 100% commitment, even if what I’m chasing is irrelevant. I love the tidiness of completion, of wrapping up a project and putting all the parts away. Yet most of life is not the big reveal moment. Those are blips on the radar screen of life. Recently I posted a 30 second reel to Instagram showcasing my freshly restored flamingos placed back in the garden. It is a glorious moment of completion and the power I felt in that accomplishment was real, and valid (it was a reasonable amount of work).
And yet most of the story is the vast swaths of time from when those flamingos were first bought a decade ago, their slow and expected decay thanks to the elements, the moment they got tossed to the side until I had time to deal with them, the ivy trying to claim them. Then I sweep in, realizing they either need to be restored or they will very shortly be scrap metal. I find some short-lived sense of purpose in giving them a few bits of my time on a few sequential days and like magic, I have this amazing sense of accomplishment I can put in a pretty format for the world to see (and Rustoleum even liked and commented on my post…so extra good feelings of recognition). This is good. This is productive and now when I gaze out of the window where I type this, shiny pink flamingos seem to smile back, so I get little pockets of delight.
But what happens when I change just one thing about this paragraph, and you read it again:
And yet the majority of the story is the vast swaths of time from when that TV show was first produced a decade ago, its slow and expected drop from popularity thanks to the element of time creating new shows that take its place my at the top of my watch list, the moment I stopped thinking about watching the show (until I had time in the arbitrary space I call “later”), new shows rushing in to claim my “later” first. Then I sweep in realizing they either it needs to be watched or it will very shortly be taken off Netflix. I find some short-lived sense of purpose in giving it a few bits of my time on a few sequential days and like magic, I have this amazing sense of accomplishment. I can put in a pretty format for the world to see (and a friend even liked and commented on my post that she also loves that show… so extra good feelings of recognition). But his is not so good. This is not me choosing to rest or be productive, this was my time manipulated by a false sense of urgency, and a manipulation that something I would otherwise consider restful is in fact also somehow productive, and I can ‘accomplish’ it.
This false sense of urgency is my current nemesis. And there is plenty of false productivity. It is something I am always on the lookout for these days. I believe it’s why we can scroll forever. By design there is no chance of us ever ‘finishing’ any form of social media, yet our desire to finish what we started keeps us looking at just one more thing and checking in for just one more minute. Despite the hilarious meme during the pandemic, you can’t finish Netflix. Every MINUTE, 183 hours of content are added on YouTube and every minute about 3 billion (yes, BILLION) photos are shared on Instagram every day. Netflix has an estimated 2.2 million minutes of programming – if you did nothing else, a bit over 4 straight years. And let’s not forget they are always adding on. I don’t believe our sweet brains can understand the volume of things that are available to us or the impossibility of “completion”. And I don’t believe most of us (without direct study of a range of topics like “game theory”) can understand what’s at play, what underlying code is making us strive to take some of this never-ending content in, making us seek a false sense of completion.
Our power might be in leaving some of this behind, declining the fake accomplishments of finishing a podcast and leaning in on things we can accomplish with more than our eyes watching the endless flow. Perhaps I’ll spend more time cooking, gardening, playing with a puppy, and hanging out with friends. I’m working to add in more things to my day that make me feel good inside, even if I I know I’ll never be “done” with them.
Resources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/195140/new-user-generated-content-uploaded-by-users-per-minute/
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/how-long-would-it-take-to-watch-all-of-netflix/
Instagram by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts