The measure of our worth

Written By Anya Pearse

A couple of weeks ago, I took the day off from my to-do list.

Instead, I spent my limited energy finishing a much-delayed sewing project (a boiled wool cardigan, if you must know, planned for the winter months, so oops).

That night, I sat in bed and got ready to write in my evening journal.

“I haven’t been very productive today,” I thought to myself, about to put pen to paper.

And then it struck me.

I had been productive.

I even had something to wear as proof.

But I had accomplished something that wasn’t work-related and not for the benefit of others.

And in that moment, I truly saw the yardstick by which I measure the success of my day.

I know what you’re thinking.

The irony.

Here I am, someone with a limited capacity to do stuff due to chronic illness, attaching my sense of self-worth to how much I’ve done.

This is the messaging of the society we live in.

That your productivity = your worth.

And it’s hard not to swallow the water you’re swimming in.

So, while accomplishment is a core contributor to happiness, I’ve been thinking about how to decentre productivity as my habitual route to satisfaction.

It’s not been easy.

One of the reasons why it’s my default yardstick is because it’s easy to measure and often binary.

Did I do X? Y/N.

There’s a hit of dopamine (or, at least, relief) from ticking items off a to-do list.

Plus, at the end of a day spent wading through treacle, the habit of listing the things I’ve done is a cognitively easy way to remind myself of the progress I’ve managed and to be grateful for it.

To find out if there’s a kinder way to do this, though, I’m experimenting with how I write my daily to-do list. In a hat-tip to the idea of paying yourself first, I’ve begun to list my wellbeing activities at the start.

With Claude.ai’s help I’m also exploring the seven types of rest, categorising ideas into ones that either soothe or energise me.

Looking after my nervous system is a top priority for me right now, as I’ve regularly been in tears this week.

Because it’s become even more precarious to be a disabled person in the UK.

Last week the Labour government – and the clarification feels necessary – published plans to cut the very benefits that support dignity and the capacity to work for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.

Cuts that will trigger despair, destitution and, in some terrible cases, even death (TW: suicide); https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/mps-hear-from-disabled-people-about-life-threatening-risks-posed-by-very-very-dangerous-cuts-to-benefits/

These cuts are necessary, it’s claimed, to balance the UK economy.

This is despite research showing that they will pass the care costs to local government and the NHS, and reports that the rhetoric is increasing acts of hatred against the disabled.

As the Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy, whose disabled son is on universal credit, points out, “It doesn’t have to be an economical contribution to society to mean that you have a place in this society.”

And yet we value what we measure – and measure what we value.

Figures on a spreadsheet are easier to measure than the quality of a human life that you don’t judge to be equal to yours.

And as I sit here, struggling through physical pain and exhaustion to finish writing this piece, an uncomfortable thought occurs to me.

Is my habit of listing what I’ve accomplished at the end of the day a way to prove my right to exist as a disabled person? To show that I’m not just a “useless eater”?

I can’t answer for certain.

And I imagine that feeling the need to justify one’s existence isn’t confined to those with disabilities; I suspect that anyone who is minoritised could have moments like this.

But it’s making me realise how easy it is to internalise deeply isolating and unhelpful narratives.

And what an act of resistance it can be to choose softness - slowness, compassion, and joy for its own sake - in an ever-harder world.

Anya Pearse
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