The Pressure of the Perfect Day
A lesson in control and surrender
My daughter is four, and I know I only have a few summers with her where she’ll genuinely want to hang out with me. Now that she’s in actual school (instead of year-round daycare), summers have a finite quality that they didn’t before. This means I only have ten weeks to squeeze in as many “perfect days” as possible and maybe four or five of those kinds of summers left.
In true OCD project manager fashion, I backward-mapped my summer to ensure I utilized it to its fullest potential.
I’m naturally a forward thinker. That’s part of what makes me so good at being a project manager; someone tells me what they want, and I can naturally see the path to get there with associated milestones, deadlines, contingencies, and precursors.
I’ve always used this natural talent in my personal life, planning things as far in advance as possible and being frustrated when people wanted me to fly by the seat of my pants.
When I became a parent, future thinking took on more urgency. My mind naturally looks ahead months and years, seeing the inevitable separation between child and parent, the natural progression of what it means to grow up.
Being able to relive childhood through my daughter’s eyes has given me a level of joy that I didn’t expect or anticipate. The flexible nature of my job means that I can structure my summers to have tons of one-on-one time with my daughter, and I’m clinging to that with everything I’ve got.
My aunt Karen recently told me that parents are a quiver; we were put here to launch our children into the world like arrows. To which I responded, “I don’t want to.” (Did I mention that I'm also a control freak in addition to being a forward thinker?)
Fast forward to the end of the summer, and it all feels like a blur. Did we have perfect days? Absolutely. We went to the zoo, hiked the mountains, camped for days and days, got pedicures, ate ice cream, went to the movies, biked, went to baseball games, and swam until we couldn’t swim anymore.
I crammed so many things into the summer that I think it made it go by faster instead of letting it linger and breeze by like summers tend to do. If I cram in everything I want to do with my daughter while she is young, it will make the years more meaningful and not let them slip away in the wind…right?
The truth is, creating so many perfect days puts a lot of pressure on the days in between. With less-than-comprehensive childcare this summer, I packed my non-perfect days with work so that I’d be able to carve out the time for the perfect days. This meant that I rushed through those days, wishing them to be over so I could get to the perfect ones.
This brings me back to a lesson that I learn repeatedly – sometimes, the best-laid plans cause us to miss the spontaneously beautiful moments. Putting so much pressure on perfect days means that the days in between lose their luster and just become filler.
One of the reasons I work for myself is that I was sick of just living for the weekends. I wanted to control what I did every day of the week instead of just suffering through it to get to Friday. I’ve realized that I still live for perfect days, weekends, and vacations… I’ve just built my work and life to have as many of them as possible. Just because I have control doesn’t mean that every day is perfect; there will still be better days and worse days; I have more of the better days than I did before.
I will never be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person, but I can try to balance my pre-planned perfect days with room for spontaneous joy. Instead of worrying about missing out because I didn’t plan, I need to worry about missing out because I did. Maybe letting go of the control over each day will also help me let my baby fly out into the world.
Not yet a hustler?
Check out my book Instant Freelancer: How to Start a Business of One for the shortest path to independent work and money in the bank. No venture capital, fancy website, or MBA needed.
Already got a hustle, but want to do it smarter?
Apply to join my Solopreneur Collaborative mastermind or consider individual coaching.
© Sarah Duran 2022
Find out more about me and my company, Fruition Initiatives, here.
The Obvious Disclaimers…
This information is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional advice. What you decide to do with this information is up to you and all repercussions are on you.