Busy getting something done

Do I exist? I'm beginning to doubt my identity. Google certainly does, and I'm pretty sure Google runs the world, so it's no wonder I am starting to think I need a verification code every time I do something, just to make sure it's me doing it and not some hacker from Podunk. I blog every week, you'd think Google would catch on, but no, something shifted in the alignment of the planets and suddenly Google is asking me to verify my identity. Are you really who you say you are? Is anyone, really? How would you know? 

You might scoff but I don't take Google for granted. I've been locked out of two Google properties simply because I can't verify my identity. There's no reasoning with Google, because there is no one there at Google. The company consists of a bunch of bots, rolling up and down aisles night and day blowing dust off servers. You could go and knock on the door, but even if someone came to let you in, you'd still have to prove you are you. What do you mean you don't have that phone number anymore? Don't you know your phone number is more precious than your social security number? No, I didn't know that. Too late for me.

So now I question my existence.

When I used to teach business classes at a career college a long time ago, I ran across a concept that haunts me still: the idea of efficiency versus effectiveness. I think I was the only person really floored by the idea that I could appear to be super busy but never do anything worthwhile. 

I can spend my days doing the things on my calendar task list, showing up for appointments, fulfilling my volunteer service commitments, paying my bills, maintaining my body and my car . . . and the things I think are important don't get done because they don't make it onto my task list. It's an insidious form of self-sabotage, to avoid acknowledging that things I care about don't get the attention they deserve. Whatever they are, doesn't matter. Some things are hard to do, and so I avoid doing them. 

Some people are very effective. They use their time wisely, they manage their resources well, and they accomplish the tasks that are important to them. Other people are very busy getting nothing done. I think I'm somewhere in the middle, most of the time. I ponder this conundrum while I'm watching Facebook videos of baby sloths being rescued by kind humans and returned to their smiling sloth mothers. Baby deer stuck in a fence, rescued by kind human and his companions with smartphones. Baby monkey stuck in a pond. Baby elephant in a hole. Baby moose stuck in the rapids, heading over the falls, oh no. Facebook has my number, for sure. And how many of those videos were taken by humans who created the dire situation and then filmed themselves coming to the rescue? Oh, cynical me. 

I was thinking today as I was riding my bike around the mobile home park in the dark that it really doesn't matter what I do, or if I do anything at all. Effective or efficient, who cares? Nobody cares. I'm not being tested. I'm not being surveilled. Nobody is counting the diminishing words in my vocabulary and going, she lost ten more words this week, assisted living, here she comes. It's kind of a relief to realize as long as I pay my bills, nobody will chastise me if I choose to do nothing. 

It's called retirement, I guess. I've been retired in my mind my entire life. I was born retired. That is, I was born believing I should be allowed to do what I want whenever I want, and that includes the privilege of doing nothing at all. You can imagine how well that has worked out. 

The sunset tonight was astounding. Wish you were here, Mom.