Six Things to Do When It Feels Like You Never Do Enough

*Note: Check with your doctor before completing anything on this list

1. Start a Substack. Promise yourself that you will publish twice a week. Get really excited. Tell all your friends. Show your mom how to sign up on her phone. Flood your Substack with content for a few weeks. Write a post about megaliths over and over until it sounds like a cafeteria description. Hide it. Look for something to eat, like a cheese stick, because you’re thinking about protein. Share some of the cheese stick with the dog.

2. Apply for an MFA in Poetry. Schedule your thesis defense during a slam busy time at work. Tell your kids you forgot their choir concert. Apologize to your dog who isn’t getting walks. Open the fridge. Give yourself a serious talk about how you need to go grocery shopping. Grab the package of mushrooms and the two-month-old spaghetti squash. Look threateningly at the oven. Give your seventeen-year-old the car keys when she suggests Chic-fil-a. Tell your brain to whisper when it starts screaming FELAFEL.

3. Research. Research anything. Request a mountain of books from your university library so that you have six months to lose the books. Take a reinforced tote bag to pick up your stack. Arrange your pile on the hearth at home. Stare at the titles and wonder why you were suddenly so taken with the idea of Druids. Sit on the floor and read about Druids until your feet fall asleep. Write a poem about Druids. Tuck the poem into a bag you never use but you are sure you will use tomorrow and so you can revise the poem.

4. Dump the laundry on the floor. Clean and dirty. Start out with separate piles. Slowly merge the piles until you can no longer tell which pile is clean and which is dirty. Start matching socks until you can tell that some of the socks smell. Call your sister to discuss the merits of a sectional from Costco.

5. Plan a huge party for yourself. Spend a serious number of hours wondering what you should wear to the party. Train an AI model to completely understand your current style and your aspirational style. Teach it your skin tone, measurements, hair color. Ask the AI to help you pick an outfit. Be more proud of the way you were able to train the model than you are of the model’s suggestions. Wonder if you own any shoes. Look at your feet to see if you are currently wearing shoes.

6. Listen to music from the 90s. Note all the albums and artists you’ve never heard of. Sit in a corner of your basement with your old yearbooks wondering how you missed the music of your emerging adulthood. Remember that your mom likes Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Grab your computer. Look up what causes Dolly Parton has donated to lately. Buy cowboy boot earrings. Look at the price of a ticket to Nashville. Close your eyes and remember that time you had chili chocolate pie from heaven’s cafeteria.