Less (Do) is More (Joy)
Revisiting my resolution and defending good advice
Most days in my life are like the last. Kids thrive in routine, so I adapted to predictability.
After the dramatic start (birth, duh), it developed slowly. Bedtime routines don’t need more than one step for nearly a year. Hell, they hardly know where they’re sleeping for months. Years go on, and then you catch up with old friends.
“What’s new?” they say, and your mind flashes to the last time you spoke. When was that? The end of summer. What’s new? The weather.
“We’re all older,” I might’ve said. Things are changing, of course, but each day is like the last in a progressive climb toward the end of our lives.
The monotony was never maddening to me. Maybe it was the years of woo-xploration and kundalini, but I was glad to be forced into the ascetic because I didn’t have self-discipline before kids. So, yes, I was zen about motherhood's mundanity, but when I told my old friend, “I suppose my life is a bit like Groundhog Day,” I didn’t mean it positively.
“The Buddhist favorite,” she responded.
In my comparison, I forgot the end of the film. My memory overvalued the beginning. I feared I’d do that in my life - trundle on from the starting line, forgetting the meaning of it all. Each day, a descent. I realized then, there was room for more appreciation in my days. So, the thought became my 2024 resolution.
The Year of Groundhog Day
My resolution this past year was more of a mantra - The Year of Groundhog Day. It reminded me to channel the appreciation and contentment Bill Murray, in the year’s namesake film, fostered with his monotonous days. I didn’t want to optimize anything - execute the exact routine to maximize my positive impact. I wanted peace and joy in the frequent banal repetition of parenting young ones.
“Mama, can you count to one hundred?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
I counted to one hundred innumerable times this year, beyond, even. It was fun. I mean that.
There were other tasks I could’ve done instead of or while counting. But then I would’ve missed a chance to make eye contact with my child, which brings me to the lesson of The Year of Groundhog Day. In search of contentment, I found it not in doing but in doing less.
The Year of Doing Less
As you subscribers know, my primary pursuit is love. A search for appreciation, for me, led me back to my relationships. If I wanted love to feel unencumbered, I had to be honest about the competition. What stood between me, and the peace I aimed for, was myself - the places I looked instead of them.
Since “bedtime” was a thing, it was special to me. Reminiscing on our day with my babies in the dark, illuminated by a twinkling battery-powered candle, singing a soft song and cuddling. I refused to sleep train. But some evenings, overwhelm replaced my peace. I was short. I was less comforting. I enjoyed my joy less.
My youthful perception - for which my old friend knew me - that I could do it all was still true. I could. But I wasn’t the me I liked to be when I did too much.
So, each day of my Groundhog Day Year, I woke up to my three boys. And each day, I fought what came between us.
As this year, rich in love and lesson, came to a close, I saw something that made me sure I had to share this story.
In Defense of “Do Less”
If your Substack algorithm is like mine, you might’ve seen someone discussing how “Do Less” is bad advice.
She said it “trivializes household and caregiving labor.”
But where were the lessenings dictated?
She said, “[Do Less] implies that women made a conscious decision to do more.”
Isn’t that deflection? An overburdened state mightn't be a choice, but implying one's present predicts tomorrow implies a lack of agency.
She said that to do less, you have to engage in other forms of unlearning or educational labor.
Which is valid criticism, but I’d never choose stasis over compassionate growth. Neither for me, nor my loves. So to her I say, I hope you enjoy the clutter. But anyone I know who appreciates effective household labor doesn't.
Even considering the mental mess my previous expectations of self made, my nervous system flashes back. When I was doing too much, I would’ve jumped into defense against this idea. But instead…
I Fucked With Less and Found Out You Fuck More
Writing this took awhile because it’s the season when less is harder to choose.
Yesterday and now, I work on the choice, for tomorrow. It’s worth it. When you’ve practiced presence throughout the year, these seasonal storms are more easily weathered - personally and interpersonally.
And when the storms pass, like on Boxing Day after the boys' bedtimes, my husband and I can reconnect, instead of repair. That night, in bed with the babies, as their heavy breaths began, I felt myself let go of the extraneous lists I’d carried. I felt light. I felt longing. Once again, all there was to do was live, and love.
I walked down the staircase to find my lamp-lit husband slouched on a couch in his flour-dusted shirt and jeans. I pointed at him. I pointed at myself. I pointed at the couch. He boomed a laugh, stood up, then hobbled to meet me. We kissed, long and slow, and laid on a new blanket we unwrapped the day before.
He devoured me. And I, him. It’d been six days since the last - a low water mark this year. Even that proved sweet in its relief - as a sole unscratched itch can be.
We slept well that night, and did the day's dishes in the morning.
Which brings me to…
Things I1 Don’t Do2 to Do Less
Have a clean sink more than two nights per week
Have plans on the weekends
Have plans in the evenings
Socialize much
Bathe much
Look in the mirror
Commute
Appointments (haircuts, ophthalmologist, etc)
Leave the neighborhood much
Maniacally tidy before guests arrive, alone
Cook3
Things I Still Bother Doing
Write
Clean the toilet
Make our beds
Read
Maniacally tidy before guests arrive
Appointments (massages, dentists (albeit less frequently and with a baby on my lap))
Life is messy, often. It is full. But I would never call it cluttered. I count one, to two, to three, and live the days the same. What luck I’d have to make it to one hundred.
Soundtrack
“don’t do” doesn’t mean never, duh!
which would never work for you because you’re not me
my spouse and I specialize in our skills/pleasures. He cooks. What would I do without him? Hence, my desire to expressly love him.