Open scene on a Saturday in August 2019: it is 11am in my co-working space. Nobody else is here, because – Saturday. I am ashen-faced in front of a laptop, eyeball twitching from caffeine, wearing open-toed wedges and a tea dress with a mischievous thigh-slit. Outside, the wind ‘awooo!’ howls and horizontal rain thumps the window. I have been in the office for 23 hours. I dressed for yesterday’s scorching sun, and now I have to do a walk of shame; my second of the week.
I have a ‘Yes, I can do that, absolutely!’ habit. It’s out before I can stuff it back into my mouth, given a competitive mania that sees me alienate friends over pool tables, and the kind of evermore ambitious drive that could power a small country.
Thankfully, I have a holiday planned. Then, I spend five days of it working, given my ‘yesIcandothat’ reflex. ‘I’m burnt out,’ I find myself wailing to my friend. ‘Who’s that dude who singed his wings and tumbled into the ocean because he tried to fly too high? Icarus! I’m Icarus!’ She contains her eye-roll at my melodrama and gently points out that this is my own fault. Nobody else’s.
I sit by the pool and write myself a letter. Promising myself that 2020 will be different. No 80-hour weeks, no all-nighters... and that I’ll only do a TED talk if the practice of it doesn’t trigger existential anxiety.
Not only do I want to work less, I want to earn less, having deep-dived into a fascinating pool of research, which showed that beyond around £60,000, there is no increase in wellbeing. Say what?! Some studies even show a decrease.
This year, I want to stay in the middle lane, delete my office address from my Deliveroo account, and quit having face-on-desk power naps in the ‘quiet room’. My pedal is coming off the metal, I’ll be putting my shoulder to it less, and my balls are going nowhere near that wall. Come join me. Let’s cruise.
Catherine’s book about happy middle-lane living, The Unexpected Joy Of The Ordinary, (£14.99, Aster), is out now.
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