Reciprocal Pt. 2*

A few weeks ago I talked about reciprocity in personal relationships, but I kept listening and more and more conversations with friends, things I heard on podcasts, or read on social media kept circling around this idea of reciprocity. 

 Are the things/activities we commit to reciprocal? 

We are in relationships with so much more than people. We are in relationship to careers, schools, gyms, books clubs, poker nights, sports teams, hobbies, club sports, just to name a few. Many of these relationships were put on hold by the pandemic and now as some of us begin to dip our toes into the new normal we can stop and ask is this relationship reciprocal? 

As a refresher how I define a reciprocal relationship an equitable exchange of love and empathy. It may seem strange to think about exchanging love and empathy with a hobby but if you’re doing something that doesn’t make you happy then it probably isn’t giving you much love or empathy.

For example let’s follow this thought experiment.  Is your relationship to the book club reciprocal?

Yes. It gives you a chance to see friends, have good conversations and read things you would never have read before. You give your time to read the book, prepare a potluck dish, go out on a weeknight. It’s time for your social and intellectual needs. When you stop to think about continuing it you think…… Hell yeah! I cant wait to do that again. 

OR

No. You rush to finish a book on a timeline, it’s always a last minute scramble to bring something for the potluck, then no one even talks about the book and worse yet all the conversations are just listing the things you’ve been doing since the last book club and not any real conversations. After each meeting you leave feeling tired and drained. When you stop to think about continuing it you think, ….. I’m happy I haven’t had to worry about this for the past two months.

The beauty of this disruption is now we all have a chance to ask ourselves what we want to invite back into our lives.

What feels good to put in your planner?

As I imagine building a life outside my home again, I want to invite activities that are reciprocal, that give me joy, that support me, that feel equitable and say no thanks to the things that don’t. 

There are many relationships that have a high level of commitment that can’t be tossed aside with ease, even if a good old fashioned #byefelica is my preferred method of dealing with unwanted things. But there is one thing that I am choosing to throw out, the false belief that being productive is how to measure my value or success. I choose to not measure my life in how exhausted I am, how many hours I spend at work, or how many things I have on my calendar.

I, like many of you, have been “doing” a lot less these days, and did I suddenly become less valuable? If I choose to read a book, watch The Office (again) or take a nap instead of sending an email, doing a load of laundry or cleaning out that closet am I less? If I don’t end my days depleted having done everything on my list plus a few more, am I less? FUCK NO!!! 

I believe emphatically that no person’s worth is tied to their ability to be productive. That is not a cultural norm. Here is where I could start a politically divisive rant, but that is not what I want to do here. My intention is to share with you the belief that your value as a human doesn’t change day to day. 

Your worthy is not defined by your productivity!

I share this belief with you in hopes that you too can challenge the idea that your worth is defined by your productivity. Invite the things you want into your life and say goodbye to the things that don’t, even if that means you are “doing” less. The world we knew is gone, and there is grief in that but we get to decide what we want the world to look like and there is incredible hope in that.

With Love,
Erin

*Original Post Date May 21st, 2020

artist @blcksmth
quote @jennyjaffe