At what age do people start to think about themselves in “the grand scheme of things”? It’s a phrase I use a lot, “in the grand scheme of things”, especially regarding us not being special. But recently, I’ve had way more of those moments.
For example, I’m driving home with my sisters from the airport and we’re playing music and talking, and I get the reverse of tunnel vision: my eyesight expands to take in the entirety of the car and the road and I stop actually hearing what people are saying and just start to think,
“I have sisters. I’m coming home to Las Vegas and we’re riding in this car on the road. My sister can drive now and we have this dynamic and it’s super different and this is a life I am living and holy shit how is this even possible???”
Ever since I tried peripheral vision meditation, I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to do it almost subconsciously. I get a thought and it triggers this response in my brain that takes in more of the scene I’m feeling in. And I’ve been having more of those thoughts recently too. I’d like to expand on some of them here.
1. My family dynamic is different.
This October, we hit the six-month mark of my mom passing away. It kind of hit me like a truck, and brought me down to earth. I didn’t even realize six months had passed until the day before, when I walked down to the lake in Kingston, Ontario that I had called my mom at so many times before. I thought about me sitting on a rock suspended above a frozen lake and just talking to her about my day, my dad telling me about surrealism, debating with my boyfriend about philosophy and falling in love.
I started crying and talking to myself. All I could bring myself to say were things along the lines of, “I literally can’t believe that you’re gone. You literally died, Mom.” I’m someone who never thought these things would happen to me and all throughout her diagnosis, I was sure she would pull through. So I just sat there in disbelief, and have done that so many times over where I’ll sit down and just think, “Holy shit, I have all the pictures that I will ever have of my mom.”
I have a lot of thoughts like that, but now it’s swayed moreso to my family. For example, my sisters picked me up from the airport when my mom would usually do it. I remember the conversations we would have and how I had just started to fully open up to her. And then I’m brought back down to my sisters and I singing in the car and just think, “This is different.”
Mom and I shutting out the haters…
2. Different doesn’t mean bad.
This is a new occurence, something I thought about a couple days ago. My mind always swings towards this fact that I will be without my mom and my family will be without my mom and the dynamic is always going to be messed up. She’s a part of our family and now we have to live without her and that sucks. That’s all true and I will never deny that for a second. But now, I have a choice to make:
Either wallow in that fact and be drowned in thoughts of what could have been, or embrace the new change and piece together this new dynamic.
I think a lot about my dad and how hard it must be for him. And I get really sad when I think about him being home without my mom, which makes me start to hate the world for what they’ve done to us. And then I think about my family all together now, laughing and talking, us three daughters and my dad, and how good it is that we have that.
I love my family so much and I’ve been missing a lot of the bigger picture, the fact that now this is our family and here’s what we have to work with, and we’re filling in the blanks where we can. I zoom out and think, yeah, this is my family and that was my mom. It’s the unluckiest thing in the world that I am without her and that my family has to be without her, but as cliche as it sounds, we do have each other.
It could always be worse, in the grand scheme of things.
Trying to recognize more of those moments as teachable lessons, things that I can pull away from and really try to understand. Some things I won’t ever understand and that’s okay, but I also know that I’ll most likely try to understand them all before I realize that, which will cause me a good deal of pain. But that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
3. Side notes for people interested in things other than my deepest most personal thoughts:
Officially ended two weeks of full-time pitching for our fundraise and it feels like I’ve been doing it for months, but I think that’s a good thing. Having a tight schedule has made me feel like a machine, but it’s very true that what you put into the machine is the quality you get out of it -> I need to get back into eating healthier and most importantly, moving my body. Traveling has definitely taken a toll.
Today was the first time in a long time that I’ve actually felt like I’ve had a weekend, like the day hasn’t just flown by without me taking the time to appreciate it. I’ve eaten regular meals, exchanged deep and soulful conversations with friends, worked a bit but on things that weren’t very stressful, and honestly sitting here writing this at 7pm on a Saturday, I feel truly rested and like my sleep will bring me a good sense of peace instead of going to bed feeling like my anxiety is going to eat me alive.
Anxiety has been more of a problem recently, which is a function of all the things I’m not doing plus the things I am doing (not exercising or resting, full fundraising and workload). Another thing I have to fix and get better at managing!
Also, fuck cancer. (how’s that for deep?)
[Edit: rip this is a long rant, hope u found something interesting/relatable from it]
I. What I've Been Feeling
Just wanted to say I relate to this a lot!
Recently I've just been cycling through the same thoughts:
1. "I NEED to build the product! And it has to be REALLY GOOD that people want!"
2. "I NEED to raise the money! Or else all the work my team has been doing is wasted and my team and users dont deserve that!"
3. Pent-up anxiety/negative thoughts that I've learned to manage well enough to "keep the machine running" over the years, but sometimes I just sit down and feel nauseous like something is *horribly wrong*.
4. "The Machine Must Go On, or else I'll go back to wallowing in my negative thoughts and I don't want to be That Person Again, I want to be a Fulfilled Person Doing Impactful Things"
5. "Actually What Am I Even Doing"
II. What I've Been Trying
I'm gonna be honest, I've tried a lot of advice to manage my emotions. Both the stoic/grindset approach of drowning my problems with work, and actually processing it and talking to people. Things that definitely worked for me:
1. Hanging around supportive people I can be honest with. This definitely helps. The more I can be honest with people and not put on a mask of "I Need To Act Like A Founder" or "I Need To Not Worry People With How Much I Worry" or "I Need To Pretend To Care About [X] To Achieve My Goals", the more relaxed I felt. I didn't expect myself to be more productive and have more energy just because I felt less tense/safe from judgement.
To me, this includes people who care about helping, are very ambitious+impact driven BUT also make me feel OK showing how Not OK I feel.
2. Momentum - There's a Sam Altman Y Combinator interview floating around where he says the top ways founders eventually fail are:
a. Cofounder drama
b. Founders losing love for the product/customers
c. Feeling demotivated due to losing momentum
The others are a whole other topic, but the third made me realise how my mood isn't actually affected by my objective status or previous accomplishments. It's actually affected by momentum - how much I feel like I'm progressing near-term. If I can sit alone, think to myself and believe "Wow, I'm really gonna do great now", it ... tends to happen (unfortunately, my brain is very critical of peptalk bs). That's why I could feel demotivated by random concerning problems even though I'm "doing so much", or feel hyperfocused for extended periods even through extreme difficulty. Sometimes I did feel motivated+accomplished and demotivated+failed, but this was correlation, not causation.
I would also caveat that people with high self-esteem essentially get this for free all the time. Heh.
3. Being High Energy - It's worded this way to include usual physical fitness+mental energy. Being fit+mentally drained is better than unfit+mentally drained, but the former can still totally suck. This can mean writing down+minimising sources of mental drain in your life or writing down successful ways to improve your mood (which is also what I'm doing right now).
III. Conclusion/confusion
To be honest, I do feel guilty a lot. I'd feel guilty for losing precious time letting my emotions affect my work and not reining myself in. Or I'd feel guilty forcing myself to overwork well beyond reasonable hours and not actually making progress despite endless chronic stress.
You seem to feel this way as well. A lot of your writing here seems to hint at what you think you *should* be doing better.
I just wanted to say I really relate to the confusion. Lord knows I've binged infinite productivity advice to figure out wtf is wrong with me, and I've at times begrudgingly acknowledged that I am an actual human with emotions. Less because I actually forgive myself, but more because I read somewhere that self-forgiveness makes me more productive which means I can do more impactful work because obviously preventing human extinction is more important than my emotional needs.
Big mood.
Also, if it has to be said, dealing with grief while running an impact-focused startup is insanely difficult, because it's hard to feel safe anywhere. I'd feel tired too - and frustrated at myself for feeling tired.
ur so real for this and honestly this makes me feel less alone w/ my anxiety and just like existential angst of stuff - also fuck cancer indeed 🫶