#25 - Entering parenthood - Meet Joy

Hi!

My life has very recently taken a huge turn into parenthood with the birth of my baby girl last week – meet Joy:

Besides all the usual concerns of being a parent, the one that I find hardest to talk to others about is the fear that I will lose my sense of self. I worry that I will no longer be able to do the things which I identify with, and eventually they will fade away from me. I acknowledge that some sacrifice and compromise is unavoidable as a parent, and I am ready to make sacrifices, but I do also want to do it in a balanced manner. I find this hard to share because rather than getting good suggestions on how to achieve a balance (see my earlier newsletter on giving advice), I feel that the most likely response I will get is that I am not simply doing enough. 

To prepare myself, I spent some time at the start of this year reflecting on what are the few things I must have in my life. I have always been a person with too many interests, who says "no" too rarely, and often lets my attention get distracted. I now feel an urgency to cut out and minimize things that are not of highest importance, and to try and become immensely productive regardless of circumstances..My first challenge has been to eliminate a common time and sleep waster - mindless browsing on my phone, which I have been finding very difficult. 

That aside, for this week, I felt it would be apt (and somewhat punny) to share this article, about joy in another form – "6 lessons from Marie Kondo's Netflix show you can apply to work and career". I personally have not read her book, and only caught snippets of her show, but her teachings are so popular now that I am also familiar with them. Initially, when I did watch her show, I thought some of her practices, like thanking the house and possessions, seemed excessive and odd. Yet after reading this, I thought, maybe these rituals are needed because we are already irrational in our lives, and we need something like this to tackle those irrational thoughts head on, and properly think about something. 

I will leave it to you whether you agree with this method of tidying up, and whether "sparking joy" is the right barometer to keep something, perhaps you have a different guideline and that is totally fine. What I think we can learn is that we have more feelings about each and everything than we realise. Things have different values at different points in our lives, and that is totally fine. If necessary, we may need to do something strange to try and recognise those feelings and come to terms with them, so that we can decide the best course of action.

Hopefully, with Joy here, I can continue to keep up this newsletter (one of those few things I have decided is important to me and will not be cut out). I hope to also share more about my parenting journey, and, if I do manage to strike that balance, to share how I managed to do so. 

Have a great week ahead!

James