#15 Systems and Goals and Joy, oh my!
about #adulting in a way that makes me happy
As one does, I was scrolling the Bird App recently and found something I've been thinking a lot about ever since - the systems over goals mindset. Without calling people who have goals losers (let's not be too bro-ey about the #grindset here), I sat with the idea of building systems for a while and it became clear to me that I've been using somewhat of a system the past couple of years. Not to achieve particular things like #sales or #personaldevelopment in some aggressive neo-capitalist way, but more to feel happy and at ease and fulfilled with myself. In the context of the past year(s), my life has been a lot less about strict, clear-cut goals and a lot more about making space to feel good and take care of myself. And, to my surprise, that does include systems, it's just not a word I would've used to call the routines that take up my everyday life.
The truth is that life isn't always super smooth sailing and that just like Bridget Jones once said, sometimes when everything's going great, there's maybe one part of your life spectacularly falls apart. (Or something like that). It's not to say that I will always wait for the other shoe to drop when things are going well (I'm curing myself of that slowly). It's more to say that if I spend my life grumbling and complaining about something that isn't going my way, I'm going to be a pain in the ass to be around and I won't stand myself at some point, either. Most things don't go exactly the way we want them to, and being a person has a lot to do with how we react or how we take care of ourselves when things don't go the way we planned. Sometimes slightly, sometimes spectacularly. I think systems are another way to deal with that.
There's nothing wrong with having goals. We looooove goals. Especially those of us who did well in school and shone with all our little gold stars and achieved everything we set out to do. Goals are great. They tell us where we need to go and what needs to be achieved, and better yet, they give us sweet sweet dopamine. It's wonderful. Having achieved something makes us feel deserving of treating ourselves, getting that nice thing, the feeling of accomplishment, identifying with our success and breaking apart at the idea of failure, etc. you get the idea.
What happens when we don't meet those goals though? Or worse, what happens when achieving those goals doesn't bring us the satisfaction we hoped for? (Newsflash, goals are literally just meant to keep you running towards the next thing. There's a sense of winning, but it is fleeting, and before you know it, you've got somewhere else to be, something else to achieve. It's built on gratification that never lasts. It's not going to give you long-term purpose or fulfillment or real, innate, long-lasting joy. It's not the kind of thing that will keep you warm at night and tell you everything you need to hear, because there'll always be the next thing. If it sounds tiring, it's because it is.
Systems are so much sexier. In my book, systems are just little routines we do to feel good. I wake up and I eat breakfast, a combination or rotation of all my favorite breakfast foods, I go move my body, I shower and I spend time working, I leave evenings free to go to the cinema, make myself a meal, go to a restaurant with friends. I call my mom. And then I think about the ways that we could decide to live, and I remember this one post from @connectwithoumou on a pleasure and play-focused life. What would that look like? What would that feel like? As she writes — pleasure, play and care are connected. Pleasure and play are just other ways of caring for yourself. It reminds me of something I had to learn the hard way a few years ago: there's people who treat life like it's a big dance and people who are hurdling through it, laughing and mocking those who are dancing. In the end, one of the two is moving gracefully, lightly, joyfully. The other one is moving with restraint, beads of sweat on their forehead, resisting, pushing, and molding themselves to an idea of what makes a life Good instead of good to them. Choose wisely.
So the systems I've built, it turns out, don't revolve around timelines and milestones and goals, rather than around how I'm feeling. Am I taking care of myself? Do I know how to care for myself? Am I choosing to leave time for play, or am I taking everything extremely seriously?
It's something I ask myself often — whether what I'm doing makes me feel light, whether it's fun, even when it's difficult. It makes me think about how seriousness often robs me of the ability to laugh at myself, to unclench my jaw, to drop my shoulders. Seriousness is fucking boring. It sucks the air out of the room and leaves no space for play. It just makes everything feel like a chore, like a to-do list, like a strict goal that you have to pursue, or else. The toil, the beads of sweat on my forehead, the mocking I've made of the people over there, dancing and feeling and moving differently? It'll go to waste. And we can't have that.
I'm much more interested lately in what happens to me when I don't meet my goals. When I don't get to where I wanted to go. When I'm facing rejection —from that client, that job, that person— who am I then?
What are my systems like when I miss the mark? Do they support me or do they squeeze the air out of me, do they make me feel small?
According to Oxford Languages, systems are “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.” I think of my routines as the things that work together as an interconnecting web, the network being my everyday life. The complex whole is the bigger picture, the big Life. I've noticed that the more I center care, play, and pleasure in my everyday life, the more my capacity to feel joy expands - the more I feel ready to build, build and build something I want to see in my life. More importantly: the more resilient I've become. I go home and I can be held by the things that make me feel happy, that make a joyous life in between the longer days or the outside world's pressures of what success means and the #grindset. Curating those moments and building those routines are the things that keep me going exactly where I need to be going.
This is not all to say that there aren't difficult days or difficult situations that continue to come towards me. It's more to say that these things will happen and that things will fall apart, and they will probably fall apart often. And that it's not really about how important that goal was and how essential it is you achieve it and how meaningful it would be if you did within the next 5 to 10 business days. Or the new year's resolutions and the mapping of your life and the quarterly reviews of all that needs to be achieved. It's to say that without all those things, would joy still be possible? Would there be room for play? Would taking care of yourself come at the expense of those goals?
Systems are sexy because they keep me sane. I know the café I go to every Saturday and I enjoy talking with people there. I know the bookstores I like and I sit there, thinking about the latest Dolly Alderton novel, debating whether I should buy it in my head. I have a spot at the café next to my house and I know the waiters there at this point - they remember my order and we say hello, how are you, how's your day. And these are the systems that matter to me. These are things I can come back to, part of myself. When the goals and the ambitions and the drive aren't (because they cannot) push me onwards on a daily basis, the systems are there. They give me meaning, and they give me joy in ways that achievements can try, but never really manage to reach: they're reliable, their joy is simple, my worth isn't projected on them. I am just myself.
I urge myself to keep thinking this way. I want to remind myself to enjoy the things I enjoy. I want to remember that these things are more important than all the other things that make a good life; that the quality of my relationship with myself is, really, reflective of the quality of all the relationships I have.
Take time to play, rest, care. Everything else —those shining goals, those little awards, the gold stars— will still be there when you return from the dance. (I know, they're there, just over the corner of my eye). They won't be any different, they'll just be less powerful. And I'll have more of me.