You're too productive – Slowing down to find peace.

Описание: I hope this video brings you a moment of peace and inspires you to slow down daily life this winter just a little with me today.

🌼 My Instagram:   / lauramarialinden  
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Hello everyone,

This might be the most beautiful winter of my entire life. We had snow, we had frozen lakes and now we even got golden hours every evening. I am enjoying this last season spent in my apartment a lot as I am preparing to move out soon.
I went on a walk to feel the sun on my face and listen to the birds who have started singing so much louder lately. I had spent all day inside working on a screen and moving my legs just for these thirty minutes felt so good.
I have thought a lot about productivity this week and about how the search for it is hurting me and honestly dimming the joy in my life. This sounds quite dark but I think that we as a collective have a problem with our mindset on productivity and self optimization. I have always been an overachiever, a workaholic and perfectionist. During most stages of my life I have worked too hard and too much, aiming for 150% to end with 100% and yet, never feel satisfied. I have bought into time management TEd talks and been influenced by morning routines for maximum productivity. I bought all the self help books to build better habits and be as high achieving as I possibly could with every day of my life and every project and path I attempted. I have often denied myself the joys of sleeping in, naps, real rest and even cut short my fun or social activities to preserve energy for more work. I always thought that that would ensure I could be successful and make something of myself. I was so scared of falling behind and that fear of being second place or even not on the podium at all was suffocating me. I was honestly drowning in sadness, shame and jealousy. To be honest, I sometimes still do but now I can take care of myself better.

I have recently opened myself to the possibility of enoughness. Having enough, being successful enough, productive enough. With all the time in the world an d all the self discipline I could have, I still couldn’t be perfect and I still couldn’t be the best at everything I tried. And even if I could, I probably still wouldn't be satisfied. And I think that’s the real issue. This perfectly optimized life and self is not achievable, not because sticking to all these routines and practices is not possible but because my perfectionist brain would never allow me to feel truly content. It was never about what I achieved but always about what I truly thought of myself.
A person who feels proud of their wins, and not ashamed of their failures and content with trying and learning, resting, and trying again doesn’t need to be the best and achieve the most and most importantly have everyone else see it. A person like that only cares about the joy of their time spent in this life. The good that they did, the things they created. My only aspiration now is to be that person.
If I took the time to notice beauty in the world today, to help someone, to be kind, to work on something meaningful to me - that’s enough. If I aspire to be something, maybe I can learn to aspire to be patient, reliable, stable, balanced, strong, healthy and humble. I think that’s productive enough.

The last week was a patchwork of travel, work, art, pottery projects and bureaucracy for me. Yesterday evening, I went on a little twilight walk to catch the last rays of sun turning into blue hour. I got this little watercolour travel set and wanted to try it out. It was one of those days where everything felt off and pointless and like I was wasting time. I left the house much too late so the beautiful light was gone so fast I didn’t get all the shots I wanted. My hands were freezing while painting and then I dropped my sketch book and the watercolour was smeared across the page. I came home feeling so silly and frustrated that I wasted the light and returned with freezing fingers and a messy sketch and mediocre video footage and then I remembered everything I just wrote. What matters is not what I achieved and the final product. What truly matters is that I went on a walk in nature. I heard the ice sing on the frozen lake. I took the time to paint and film and create something. That’s what matters. And that’s why it was a good day and a beautiful evening .

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