Best for:
Exhausted lower and middle class professionals on the steady grind, indie creative people constantly fighting algorithms, and the burnt-out friends managing high-stakes interpersonal relationships.
The Vault
- The mechanical failure of the moving goalpost in professional and personal growth.
- Distinguishing your physical capacity from the toxic “requirements” of modern culture.
- Reclaiming the Default to Zero mindset to celebrate every authentic action.
- Addressing the “Celebration Deficit” formed by unrealistic metrics and corporate retaliation.
“Just because you could be doing more doesn’t mean you have not done enough.”
A Night Shift Epiphany:
I was at work the other night, when I was reminded of an overlooked radical victory we should all try to focus on more. This was also my third night shift of four, back-to-back. Not to mention it was also my longest shift of the week, a 16-hour true-double. These long marathon-like shifts typically leave me feeling more like a well-oiled machine than anything close to resembling a human.
We had just finished the midnight bed-checks, I took my seat and opened my phone. I was scrolling through TikTok one-hundred percent focused on killing a little time and trying to keep myself slightly entertained until the next time I was needed for assistance.
I was just scrolling away, and I flicked right past the video as I heard a woman claiming she had a quote that would change the listener’s life for the better, through positive thinking.
Though, if we are being honest, my immediate internal reaction was a cynical “yeah, right,” I think I even scoffed out loud.
I did, obviously scroll back just to see what the “great” quote was, and the words she shared actually stopped me in my tracks.
“Just because you could be doing more doesn’t mean you have not done enough.”
She proceeded to smile and say something to the effect of “You heard me, in all you come to do stop looking at what you didn’t do, look at what you were able to do.”
Those few seconds and couple of sentences exposed the lie we are all living willingly, in almost an instant. These days we find ourselves often stuck in a world that is always expecting more…
More access to us,
more content,
more authentic views into our private lives,
more time,
and even more productivity.
Whether it is a corporations internal management team expecting us to bridge their staffing gaps or a friend giving us a look that resembles our childhood dog’s droopy puppy-like eyes. We are constantly guilt-tripped both as a manipulative tactic and on accident.
Consider this:
What happens though, when we have nothing more to give?
Is the pressure to fulfill someone else’s need out of fear of being replaced still just as relentless?
My POV:
I for one feel that it is good to be reminded that whatever we offer, even the days we find ourselves able to offer nothing, choosing to prioritize our own mental health, still ensures we win.
Doing something at all is a feat in itself when navigating a world full of people who appear kin to the birds screaming “mine” in “Finding Nemo.” This is the only way to do more for ourselves than to simply survive.
External Pressure:
The external voices demanding more usually start by turning our boundaries into obstacles, creating a landscape of expectation that is impossible to satisfy.
These seekers of the never-ending more in our lives show up in personal, professional, and creative avenues more often than others at least when I consider my own lives experiences.
The “More, More, More” People:
- Interpersonal: These are the specific people who always have one more request. You know the moment you give an inch, and they appear to turn their sad puppy eyes towards you while they give you “the look.” Or worse an obviously not authentic sob story.
- Corporate: Manifesting as our managers that treat extra shifts as the baseline. Then they turn around and attempt to punish employees who have the audacity to take our earned and scheduled time off.
- Creative: For the indie creative individuals, it is the algorithm’s ever-changing rules breathing down our backs, demanding high-volume content just to grow visibility.
Comparison Distortion & Privilege:
We often judge ourselves when we show up. Then we double down and compare our outcome or actions with how someone else did. No matter the instance, the someone else most likely has a completely different ability and set of privileges than our own.
When it comes to algorithms, others may also be using paid promotions or are simply more favored by the algorithm’s bias over queer, advocacy, and community-forward things in my case. In the workforce, our supervisors can feed this by comparing employees to each other when you do not agree to give them more of your free time.
The Internal Trap:
When the external pressure is loud enough for a long enough period of time, it creates an internal identity crisis that rots our self- perspective.
- Interpersonally: There is a haunting fear that if we stop going outside of your ability for people, we will lose our value to them. I’m not sure when, but we have started to view us not being able to fix the problems of our friends as a moral failure.
- Corporately: We internalize the toxic way management speaks as if we are the cause of their staffing issues, taking the blame for their lack of communication.
- Creative: Indie folks see this turn into feeling like our creations aren’t worthy of being sold because the algorithms favor the replaceable high-volume creators over the authentic voice.
The Mechanical Failures of Logic:
The logic of the never-ending more is fundamentally broken because it relies on shifting targets and impossible standards.
The Moving Goalpost Trap:
Meeting a social requirement usually only leads to the expectation that we will immediately jump higher. In the corporate world, taking on extra days only leads to management treating our extra-work as the new permanent baseline. The moment you need your scheduled time back, you are treated as a burden.
Capacity vs. Requirement:
We have to work at recognizing that our capacity to answer a noon text when we work third shift later that night doesn’t mean the relationship requires it. There needs to be a clear gap between what each of us can take on mentally and what we are unwilling to budge on for our own safety.
The Threshold of Diminishing Returns:
Eventually, over-thinking and over-giving both typically start to cause friction in our minds and lives. This threshold is where our improvements stop and our sanity breaks.
The Myth of the Final State:
Reclaiming our own lives requires accepting that there is no final state where any of us have done it all.
- Relationships: These are daily practice rituals, not a level we can beat.
- Corporations: Management often uses empty threats; it is not a reflection of your work ethic.
- Algorithms: The biased algorithm will never be 100% accurate or responsive in the way we want always.
The Path to Being Enough:
The Default to Zero Mindset:
We need to work at resetting our expectations so that a simple check-in is seen more like a radical overlooked victory.
Our work ethics are a direct reflection of the work we do that is required, not what a manager says when we tell them “not this time, pal.”
The Devaluation of Completion:
We must acknowledge and celebrate that we show up consistently. Clocking out after a shift and enjoying ourselves and our freedom from the man is a victory we all should relish in more often.
TLDR:
In a world addicted to the never-ending more, doing enough is a radical success.
Whether you are finishing a 16-hour shift or an indie creative project, our value is defined by our boundaries, not our output volume.
Further Reading:
Work place strategies for mental health
Reddit- the algorithm won’t build your brand people will
A poem about being the mirror of others
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