What you can drop today.

Thoughts on un-programming an over-programed life.

Over-Programming, Scheduling, and the Chaos of Modern Life

Who here struggles with over-programming? Have you ever felt like technology has created this bizarre reality where we can schedule our days down to the hour—sometimes even the minute? I’m not trying to dodge responsibility here. My conscious mind tells me I’m an active participant in this scheduling clusterfuck—but why is over-programming a problem?,

Because I’m miserable. That’s why.

Last week, I scheduled a walk with a friend. Get this: it was scheduled and rescheduled three times. We live in the same neighborhood. We’ve known each other for over ten years. I even sent out Google invites. Things kept coming up. Finally, after multiple attempts, we carved out forty-five minutes to walk around East Oakland, whose current tagline might as well be "Where life doesn’t matter anymore.”

Walking with friends is one of the most nourishing things I do. I love being with people, I love being in nature, and I love moving my body. So why is it so damn hard to make time for this euphoric, otherworldly, ordinary, thrilling experience? You tell me.

As we slid around the hills, my friend asked if we could stop at the pharmacy to pick up some face cream. That was great—it added a “mission” to our walk, something tangible. When we returned home, we would have something to show for our efforts. How absurd is that?

There’s no escaping the embarrassment of existing in this era—walking around, discussing the end of humanity and where our kids got into elementary school.

In Oakland, like many cities, we have a school lottery. It’s a mess from every angle. Schools are wildly underfunded, then ranked, and then someone—somewhere—decides where your child will go based on criteria that I almost understand. We applied not based on which schools were “good” per se, but on the hope that M would know other kids there and feel less alone. Parents, I’m sure you all have reasons for wanting your kids to go to certain schools. They’re all valid.

We got into our neighborhood school. But here’s the thing—they make you rank schools, so I did. And I ranked our neighborhood school last.

I’m not complaining. Really, I’m actually embarrassed that I didn’t just send her there. It’s literally a block from our house—the easiest possible option. I’ve listened to Nice White Parents, I’ve read Courtney Martin. And still, I’m not sending M to the school on our block.

Why?

The excuse I give is her medical needs. People seem to understand that. But if I’m honest? I don’t know if I’d send her there even if she didn’t have medical needs—even though that was our plan before all this came into play.

How did you decide where to send your kiddo? No judgment—just curious.

On our way home from the pharmacy, with face cream and candy in hand, my friend showed me her schedule. It was worse than mine.

This isn’t a competition.

I feel over-programmed. She feels over-programmed. Every hour of every day is either a Zoom call, a dance class, a soccer meetup, a doctor's apt, an oil change, a tree trimming, etc.

For me, over-scheduling reflects deeper values I want to unpack. I don’t think I use the word “busy” as a status symbol anymore. Remember when being busy was all the rage? It replaced old-school status symbols, like leisure time on a yacht. Suddenly, being too busy became the new flex.

"I can't come to your kid's birthday party because I have a gala to volunteer at, it's my anniversary, and my kid is in the school play that night."

‘Point taken. I won’t invite you again,’ Thinks the person who thought they were your friend and someone you would show up for.

“I want to show up for you. Really, I do!” I promise and feel deeply but know that I am at a breaking point and probably will eventually let this person down.

“Then why can’t you just come to my kid’s birthday, go to the gala, volunteer, and celebrate a relationship milestone while your kid is sick at home and your toilet is leaking?”

But in my life, “busyness” has morphed into something else. I feel like a train, barreling through life, trying to see all the things, meet all the people, eat all the food, have all the friends, write all the books, be that person. I’m a trainwreck waiting to happen because I cannot slow down. Slowing down would mean missing something. But this constant motion comes at a cost: not enjoying my one, precious life.

I think this overload is a tangled web of fear of being forgotten, longing for connection, FOMO, and the Protestant value of optimizing time. The “you only have one life” mentality is meant to help us prioritize, but instead, it pressurizes our time. We think about our schedules in economic terms. What’s the best “value add” for my time? How can I maximize the return on my interactions? Do we really want to organize our lives like this? It’s late-stage capitalism talking, and I still find myself buying in.

As we turned onto my friend’s block away from the Goodwill, she brought up Pooja Lakshmin’s book Real Self-Care. She said she felt like she had too many balls in the air and there were reframes in Pooja’s book that she kept coming back to. Pooja suggests we decide which balls are glass and which are rubber. Then get comfortable with dropping things. Letting things go. What would happen if you let something go? Let someone be mad at you? I forgot to give M her enzymes before a meal last week - it felt like in my body I had just committed murder. Here we were, I have this kid who needs me to be responsible and I fuck everything up. Did life go on? Yes.

This morning, my friend texted me: "Which balls are you going to drop this week?"

I told her, "I’m letting go of worrying that the world is ending. I’ll take it one day at a time."

When that worry creeps in—like during my morning stretching—I gently tell myself, "I don’t need to worry about that right now. Things will fall into place. And when they don’t (because life), I’ll have the skills to repair them with care."

Then, I ate a few fresh kumquats from my friend’s tree and stepped out into the world.

XOXO, Carissa

PS Bad At Keeping Secrets is a project that I love doing. If you feel like you want to support it, consider getting something from People I’ve Loved. This week, I wanted to feature a tray that is back in stock. I love objects that can hold a little bit of our worry, or pain, and make us feel better. In a literal sense and an emotional sense.