The Effort Of Just Getting Shit Done

Or, where I've been and what I've been thinking about in circles.

1. I’ve been think about insecurity a lot lately.
   
   I generally stiffen at the idea of social media, pop-psychology. The types of one-offs that people turn into quote graphics on Instagram and repost to their stories because it makes them feel validated on their own ability to be wise? Yeah it’s not for me. Be it the Thought Catalog days of yore in my past or the fact that I find most self-help to be pretty pedantic, but Instagram therapy almost always sucks and isn’t helpful and is just about validating bad behavior in my oh-so-humble opinion.
   
   HOWEVER.
   
   I saw a TikTok recently in which the woman in the video simply said, “I can be friends with people who have insecurities, I can’t be friend with people who are insecure.” And I kid you not, I had to stop myself from yelling “OMFG THAT” to no one but my iPhone in the dark.
   

   Insecurity is all around us. Honestly it’s probably engrained into our DNA to a certain extent give the society of it all. We’re simultaneously told that comparison is the thief of joy but also look at this person and what they’re doing and like this post and congratulate this LinkedIn accomplishment and fire react to this and more and more and more and more. In a world where we can barely turn off our access to anything, how could we not get at least a little insecure?
   
   I think the turn off and the line for me though, personally, is when people either A) make their insecurities their personality or B) they make those insecurities other people’s problems.
   
   The specifics on this would be Too Much Tea™ about People You Don’t Know™ but all of this to say, in the days when I’m just observing other people’s behavior like I’m at my own personal zoo, it’s become super apparent to me when I’m dealing with an insecure person and not just someone simply having a bad day. Of course we all wake up sometimes and feel like we are simply a troll that should live under a bridge and ask people riddles to cross. But if you move through every day being irritable because people don’t always feel like that? You’re not simply having a bad day, you’re insecure. And annoying.
   
   Anyway. As I continue to work through things like shame and guilt and the uncomfy emotions that make us all human, I’m hyperaware of the difference between having an insecurity and being insecure. Because as much as sometimes I would like to not be human, I would like even less to be an insecure one.
   

2. As a gift, here is a banana bread recipe.
   
   Two things to know about me:
   
   One) I absolutely hate bananas. The texture, the smell. I cannot stand them.
   and
   Two) If I like you, I’ll probably bake you anything you ask.
   
   So even though the smell of a squishy banana makes me nauseous and I kind of find the concept of a “quick bread” a little too caucasian for me, I’ve been sending this one person off with banana breads on the weekends. Some with chocolate chips, some with swirls of Nutella, some with just a dash of cinnamon. But always with greek yogurt for moisture and tang, always with banana you don’t fully mash because you should get little bite of what the thing IS when you’re eating it, always in a well sprayed pan so the slices don’t stick and get weird.
   
   If you’d also like to make a banana bread, I would suggest this one. I’ve been told it’s a crowd pleaser.
   

3. In news that shocks no one, the American healthcare system sucks dick.
   
   I haven’t taken too deep of a dive in to the specifics (partially because I don’t even have all of the answers yet and partially because idk, some stuff is just personal) but since fall of last year I’ve been dealing with some of the worst health stuff of my adult life.
   
   I was a healthy kid and teen and young adult. I’ve never had surgery, never broken a bone, never been hospitalized. I’ve only been to the ER twice and only had stitches once. The sickest I’ve ever been was having mono in high school. Other than that and one really terrible, horrible, no good very bad bout with Covid (trust me, mine was worse for a lot of reasons iykyk lol), I really haven’t had a ton of health problems. I’ve been very lucky.
   
   Until now. When life gives you lemons sometimes it also gives you a paper cut and makes you hold them anyway or...something like it.
   
   While I am (hopefully) at the tail end of it, it’s been painfully rude awakening as to just how fucked up the medical system in this country is. Between minsdiagnosises, drugs that did nothing, drugs I didn’t want to take, drugs I’m now taking that are very expensive if I don’t qualify for them, a lot of “well we don’t know” moments, and dealing with insurance, worrying that things are getting bad again, trying to not take the good days for granted. All of it together and, well,…I am…exhausted.
   
   I’m not at a place or dealing with anything that I would ever classify myself as or self-identify as “chronically ill.” But what I will say is I don’t know how people navigate all of this on a regular basis. It has honestly made me sicker. Sicker and emotionally drained and just depleted.
   
   So if that is you, my hat is off to you. It is truly dog shit and I understand why people move to Europe.
   

4. I miss the weird animals on/in the Smartwater bottles.
   
   I feel like no one else remembers these.

   

   
   When I was in college (and maybe even in my twenties??) Smartwater used to hide little animals on the interior labels of their bottles. It started with their goldfish but I distinctly remember there being other animals. The little crab, a frog, a duck. They would be on the labels and have some water fact related pun to coincide with them.
   
   I loved them.
   
   Which is why I’m unhappy to report they’re gone. The labels are boring and generic now.
   
   I guess capitalism kills whimsy or something. That’s all.
   

5. You owe it to yourself to learn to finish your shit.
   
   …This is mostly for me.
   
   Done is better than perfect. Done is better than nothing. Done is better than what if. Done is better than maybe someday. Done is better than, “Oh yeah I forgot about that.” Done is better than watching it happen for someone else. Done is better than wondering if it could happen for you. Done is better than perfect. Done is better than nothing. You can do done.
   
   So do it. Don’t let the things you haven’t done become something that turns into an insecurity that looms around the corner haunting you and taunting you and making you feel like shit about yourself. Just do it.
   
   This Substack I’m finally putting out there and not worrying about completely perfecting is my first step with breaking the habit of just not doing the things I want to do.
   
   Cheers to more of that in the latter half of this year.