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Lots to Do
I was talking to fellow grad students one day, and some of them are basically dedicating all of their time to grad school, with a little bit of fun and enjoyment thrown in there.
That’s not me right me.
I go to graduate school, but I have another job too. I am a parent.
Today, I had a lot of things to deal with. I tried to teach one child gratitude, another one better social skills. I helped with piano practice. I checked in on homework. I managed media time, locking up devices and turning things on and off as needed. I cooked dinner, and then made sure that the kids who didn’t want to eat that dinner still ended up eating something nutritious instead of just scarfing down tortilla chips. I baked cookies with my daughter, using the library book she checked out from the school library, and we successfully made a sugar cookie bowl. I played a card game with my son. I drove another daughter to a church activity. I ordered groceries for pick-up tomorrow. I ordered a new wifi adapter for the kids’ computer. I checked in with a kid who has started a journal and he showed me his entry. I washed sheets and I made beds and ensured that my kids showered and brushed their teeth.
And then I also was struggling with a dissertation problem, trying to figure out how to hold two views at the same time when one leaned pluralist and one leaned monist. I think I came up with a solution. I updated the settings for an assignment for my class and post an announcement about an upcoming due date. And I finished reading a book.
In all of these happenings all throughout the day, I kept feeling that I wasn’t doing enough. I did not get a lot of schoolwork done today. I watched cooking shows (one while I was exercising, so that barely counts). I didn’t get all my cleaning done. I could have done more.
But I need to be more kind to myself. Because I am doing a lot, even in all of the chaos of my life. All the care work that I do for my children is unpaid and unrecognized. But it’s still really important, and I’m going to keep at it. I’m going to keep trying, and give myself credit that I am doing a lot, and it is enough.
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Life is Not Linear
At some point in my life, I will have already completed my most important work. I will have had the happiest time.At some point, I will lose friends faster than I can make friends. I will have have been on top of the mountain and I only be able to go downwards.
And then what?
Life has many different seasons. It is not a linear progression upward, but a combination of lots of different things at lots of different times. We have seasons of productivity, success, and stability. But there other seasons of life: Rest. Decline. Struggle.
I get really frustrated with life when I want this linear progression upward. Every day better than the last. Every moment better, better, better. But it isn’t. That’s not how life works.
There are ups and down, but there are also things that are mixed up together, ups and downs at the same time.
I can be grateful for those moments that are really good, while also realized that I don’t have to keep chasing them. I can live in the season I am in, instead of just always wanting better.
The harder seasons are still really good. There are times when I’m not very productive, when I am behind, when I’m not really that happy. But that’s okay. There is still love in those seasons. There is still those small moments of joy, and it’s okay that they are small.
Life doesn’t have to progress upward in order for it to be good.
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Home: The Safe Place
My kids behave their absolute worst at home. So do I, when it comes down to it. We all yell and scream and cry. Home becomes a place where all those emotions come out.
It can be discouraging. I would like our home to be calm and clean and happy. But so often it feels like my home is full of garbage: Actual garbage. Emotional garbage. All those worst moments that I wish didn’t exist.
I think the wrong way to deal with this is to try to eliminate all those bad moments. Because those bad moments need to happen. We all need a place where we can behave without expectations for a moment.
And home can be that safe place. Home is the place where we can scream and cry and struggle. We put on a face everywhere else, and then at home we can totally relax and let all of the garage out, that garbage that we keep hidden.
It’s a really good thing that my kids behave badly at home. Because they feel safe there. They feel like they can.
Home becomes sacred because it houses all of us, not just the good bits.
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It’s okay not to finish
Sometimes I don’t do things because I don’t feel like I have the time and the energy.
But I can give myself permission to not finish. If I don’t have to finish, I’m much better at getting started.
I can clean part of my house. Fold part of the laundry. Read part of a paper. Write part of a blog post. Go on part of a hike.
Small efforts are better than no effort.
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Finding Hope Amid Anxiety: A Call for Integrity
I feel a lot of anxiety right now about the future. Not really my future, but the future of everything. I look at the news regularly, and it makes me worry. I was in a conversation where everyone was just feeling bleak, that things were going to worse–not just big picture problems, but smaller things too. There are constant worries that things may not turn out, that life will get harder. That we are not okay.
I have seen a person get fired for doing the right thing and a person up for promotion despite previous wrongdoing. People seem to dispose of ethics and morals and helping others. Instead, they pursue what they can get away with, what is technically legal, and what makes them better off. And these people are often hypocrites: declaring their beliefs of integrity while secretly acting in other ways. I think many people are not aware of their own hypocrisy: they don’t realize that what they are doing is wrong.
But I do have hope.
And that hope is mainly rooted in the fact that there are still lots of good people fighting for good things.
The fights that we have with each other are not fights of good people versus evil people. Most people think they are good. Most people are trying to do the right thing. So our fight is not like a fantasy battle where there are heroes and villains and we want the heroes to win and the villains be eliminated.
Instead, people are often misinformed, deluded, and confused. Most people are not villains, but imperfect people who have lost their way. Though we should not trust misguided people with responsibility and power, we are not in a battle to eliminate them. Instead, we want to change the conversation. We want to bring more sense and reason. Instead of being afraid of each other, we want to be able to work together to find what we have in common and pursue better solutions.
The fight is one of persuasion and information. We fight to bring dark secrets into light. We fight to discover what is true. We fight to care for each other.
We don’t fight against each other. Instead, we fight against bad ideas. We fight against corruption. We fight for the disadvantaged. We fight for good outcomes.
And I will keep my hope. I will keep doing what I think is right and contribute to my family and my community. I will stay informed. I will encourage the people around me to keep living good lives, to be people of integrity. And I will try to live what I preach.
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Time
I was watching John Green’s video about the average American, and he said something that haunted me: the average American spends more time in social media than going outside.
I was doing that.
I love being outside, I really do, but it seems like all the work I have to do is often indoors. My research is inside. My housework is inside. Lots of things are inside. And that’s fine.
But when I need a break, do I go outside, or do I go into a screen?
And I usually go into a screen. Much more than I really want to. It can become a default: whenever I feel stressed and overwhelmed, go to a screen (or stay on the screen).
I don’t want to do that anymore.
Yesterday, I was cleaning out the car and I went to put some stuff in the trash can, and I looked up at the sky. The sky was clear, and I could see the Milky Way cutting through it. It was the sort of sky where there were stars absolutely everywhere.
I noticed. And I tried to get my kids to come and see (they came, but didn’t care quite as much). I delayed the things I had to do to just stand out there, craning my neck up to see the universe above me.
I went on a walk today, and it is the perfect kind of weather: a little bit windy, the sort of temperature you can wear whatever you want and it will be only a little bit uncomfortable, and crunchy leaves flying across the ground. The world is turning yellow, the sky was cloudy, muting the sun. It was beautiful.
The things that I often use for stress relief actually cause me more stress. They tired me out and drain me.
What actually invigorates me is going outside, playing with my kids, being active. Having space to exist.
I’ve spent a lot less time on my phone and on a screen the last few days, and I have felt freedom and a lot more peace inside.
Trying to split my mind between my life and junk on my computer is just hard. Being in my life is a lot better.
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Weight
I recently finished a rough draft of a paper and sent it to my advisor. I had meant to finish that paper in the summer. Then school started, and I thought I should be able to finish it by the end of August. And then August ended, and I no longer had a deadline, just a heavy weight that I had not completed a draft yet.
I felt so behind, and I did not want to work on this paper. I was stuck. I felt guilty for my lack of progress. But I needed to work. So I decided I was just going to sit down and dictate it. I turned on the dictator, and I talked.
I had to stop talking midway through because I had kids coming home from school, but then I kept typing until I was 4,000 words in and I had a very messy word vomit rougher than rough draft.
The paper got a whole lot easier. I was able to go through and make that word vomit into something that actually resembled actual research and argumentation.
I still need to do more research (there is always more to read). I still need to improve my arguments. I still need to proofread and actually put in proper citations.
But I think I hated working on that paper not because I hated the subject material or the argument, but because it reminded me that I had disappointed myself. I had expectations that I didn’t meet.
When I finally finished what I had wanted to do for so long, the paper wasn’t so bad anymore.
I’m not sure what to do about that in the future.
Lower my expectations? But sometimes if I have high expectations, I can get a whole lot done.
Just get things done, so I’m not missing deadlines? This is the best case scenario. I’m always happier when I’m ahead of schedule instead of behind schedule.
Maybe have multiple deadlines in mind in the first place? I mean, the deadlines were my deadlines. The actual deadline for this paper is towards the end of October (for a final draft, not a rough draft), but I don’t necessarily get kicked out of graduate school if I miss that deadline. So maybe my own self-imposed deadlines need to have a different flair: I need to realized that sometimes I have overly optimistic deadlines, realistic deadlines, and life-gets-complicated deadlines. And set all of those different dates for myself, so that when I blow past the overly optimistic deadline, I don’t feel so much guilt.
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Ups and Downs Summer
Hello. It’s been a while.
Summer mornings creep in early with promises of sunshine and laughter. The sun creeps up early, ready to go and move. But by afternoon, the clouds have rolled in, and the thunder starts, and it randomly pours onto everything we’ve left outside in the promise of sunshine. By the evening, there is a glimmer of hope again as the clouds part enough for a beautiful sunset, but I am so tired.
I sometimes feel more like the thunder than the sunshine, though there are so many sunshine moments anyways.
This summer has been busy: I’m teaching an online class. I’m taking care of four children and lots of animals. I have yard work and a garden. And a garage addition (though I haven’t done that much with it).
And we like to go and do things: hiking, kayaking, canoeing, parks, splash pads, cousins, lemonade stands, museums, swimming, etc.
There is not enough time and too much time. And I am grateful for what time I do have, even through the ups and downs.
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Connection over Mastery
What is the most important part of your career?
I’ve read quite a few books about productivity that talk about concepts such as mastery and flow: how to deep focus and get more done. In my career, I want to write clear papers with good arguments and be an expert in certain subjects. I want to be able to present and publish and eventually finish a dissertation.
However, at the opposite end of whatever work you do, there is someone else.
So the point of productivity may not be about accomplishing something and becoming the expert–it’s about affecting others. Maybe productivity isn’t really about mastery and flow. Productivity can be about connection and relationships instead.
Love is so much more important than expertise. Think about being a parent: it doesn’t really matter if you are an expert on parenting. It matters more that you love your kids.
And maybe that’s applicable to more areas than we think it is. You can easily see how it would matter in something like teaching or social work.
But what about something like writing and design work or policy work? How can prioritizing love and relationships make a difference there?
It seems like when we are creating something we are aimed at this product. But the product does not exist in a vacuum. The product is used by people. And so every project and product is also part of a relationship, between the creator and the user.
It can be hard to see that connection, but I think it makes the products so much better if a creator can see the relationships that surround what they create.
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Total Solar Eclipse
We drove to Texas in order to see an eclipse.
In 2017, we lived in the path of totality of a total solar eclipse. My kids were all little then, the oldest barely in school and the youngest literally breastfeeding during the eclipse. Dillon was working at the state park we lived at and coordinating all the visitors who had come. Some of my family came out to experience it with us.
When it was over, I just wanted to experience it again. And I had to wait almost 7 years, but we put the 2024 eclipse on our calendar (on the wrong date, but we fixed it later).
Things changed a lot in 7 years. We moved and moved again. Dillon switched jobs a few times. I started graduate school. We renovated a house. Our kids are now all in school, all old enough to remember.
5 months before the eclipse, I reserved a campsite in the path of totality at Cedar Hill State Park. And then eventually made the rest of the travel arrangements. As the day got closer, though, I was worried: cloud cover. I kept checking the weather app, and it never changed. There was always cloud cover.
But we drove over 20 hours to Texas (and then over 20 hours back). We planned out stops along the way and saw some cool things: a faux waterfall, structures built almost 1,000 years ago, my aunt, vintage RVs, rocks interspersed with iron or copper, old airplanes, turtles swimming in a river, longhorn cattle, vintage video game consoles.
I was somewhat distracted during the trip as I am towards the end of the semester, and final papers are looming. I had to do some school work even when I just wanted to be on vacation.
The day of the eclipse came, and the clouds rolled in. We went on a hike in the morning through forest and grasslands, and the air was misty with humidity.
And then the clouds rolled away as the eclipse started.
I have words I could use to describe the eclipse: awe, sublime, beauty. In the middle of totality, I felt like I needed to get a picture, but I could never capture that moment. Pictures and videos do not show what it is like. It is an experience: aesthetic, spiritual, awesome.
The sun had come out and the day was hot, and then the temperature dropped. The birds stopping singing. The crickets chirped. I could see planets and stars and the moon and the sun all together in the heavens.
It was worth it.
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We drove back home after it rained on our camping stuff. We dropped by a museum filled with random old stuff, a conservatory of tropical plants, and a frontier prison where we heard macabre stories. We arrived home to clean up, drive off our camping stuff, and go back to normal.
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During this weekend, it was General Conference for my church. I listened to quite a few talks, and we tried to watch sessions together as a family. We heard about miracles and prayer.
And I was praying.
Sometimes, it is not easy to believe, to have faith. I am friends with many who have stepped away from faith, all for their own unique reasons. And for a moment, I was just filled up with questions and worry. I need spiritual experiences regularly in order to keep my faith, and sometimes they seem too far away.
I don’t know if it counts as a miracle that I was able to view the eclipse, free of clouds. The forecast never changed, but the clouds went away for many. Yet some places were still cloudy.
I do view it as a blessing, a tender mercy. The total solar eclipse is spiritual: heavenly bodies so perfectly sized and timed to bring night when it should be day.
I wonder how it would feel like it you didn’t know that an eclipse was coming. If it got dark and cold, the shadows trembling as the heavens move in inexplicable ways. If you could see the sun disappearing through the clouds. Everything changes. It is night for a few minutes, that fades back it into day. It would be terrifying.
We can map the heavens now, and yet there is still so much that remains unknown. I find myself often in inexplicable moments where I do not understand.
I worked on a research project on my trip, getting feedback back and forth from a professor who knows much more than I do. I am interested in a topic because I do not understand, and because the more I read and think, the more questions I have. I don’t think there is a way of figuring it out at all.
And life is like that. There is a type of comfort that can come inside the terrifying unknow: that with everything I do not know, I can still live and breathe and love and experience beauty greater than I can understand.
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Heather Hoyt 