117.

This intricate
mess of things I’ve accumulated,
habits, projects, practices, pastimes,
they’re one quick gust away
from toppling to the ground.
I say
I’ll wake up early one day,
and I sleep in;
I say
I’ll work this many hours one day,
and I download Sudoku instead;
I say
I’ll check everything off my little to-do list,
and I let the internet take me away.

I’m not condemning the internet,
I’m lamenting my seeming inability to block out its siren song.

I’m not sure, anymore,
how to quantify productivity.
Not sure how to qualify it, either,
since quality tends to be preferable to quantity.
How much did I get done yesterday?
How much of it is valuable?

This is a bad time for perfectionists.
I’d like my shoddy attempts at taking steps
to count toward something – at least,
to be perceived as a move on my journey of betterment.

Away, perfectionist Machiavellian mind, I need
to focus solely on the means; forget the ends,
and move, just move,
just

do the damn work, man.

Advertisement