Last evening, I had an hour-long conversation with a person I trust. Okay, it was my therapist. She told me something incredibly validating that I might have observed myself, but it means a lot that she observed it, and imparted it to me.

I was telling her how anxious I have been–continually and chronically, over a long period of time–about being busy. I live in constant fear of forgetting something, not working hard enough, and letting someone down. I fear embarrassment and loss of credibility–not to mention loss of employability and money.

She said, “Everybody I talk to feels the same way.”

She described a world where everybody who has a job is picking up the responsibilities for their laid-off comrades. Everyone who is working is either overworking, or is letting things fall through the cracks. Everyone who is not working faces that brand of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. So, everyone is panicked.

Oh thank god. It isn’t only me.

In my last post, I described this anxiety and the calm I feel during my vacation. I don’t want to lose this calm. It feels human.

What a concept–being human. I think I’ll work on that.

It’s a vacation day, in my home and my neighborhood. This morning I enjoyed the luxury of having salon professionals wash my hair for me, then cut it. Now I’m at my favorite diner while the car gets its own salon treatment at the auto shop next door.

It’s been many months since I felt this calm. Without the enforced break of vacation, even on weekends, I feel the weight of work on me like a thundercloud about to explode with rain. As long as someone–boss, client, coworker–is waiting for some deliverable from me, my mind doesn’t rest until it is delivered.

Is this some personal anxiety of mine, or is this common?

Is the answer self-discipline and positive self-talk, or to challenge the generally accepted culture of work? The only answer I can think of, for me, is to challenge my notions about work.

In the Raymond Chandler novel, and more famous Bogie-and-Bacall movie,the Big Sleep is death. To me, the Big Sleep is one step shy: depression.

For long periods of time, I have been depressed. For me it’s a living death. No matter how exhilarating a spring day it is, no matter how angelic the children are, no matter how well stocked the pantry is, life doesn’t feel worth living. Love doesn’t break through.

When it was its worst, I took drugs, I did intensive therapy. Working on my health helped me wake up, but depression still threatens. It would be naive to believe that I can stay awake through sheer willpower and determination.

I once took a workshop in which the word “depressed” was translated as “deep rest.” Yes, the Big Sleep–but with a connotation that it’s restorative. I find that interpretation to be helpful. When I feel depression coming on, I do my best not to indulge depression to its deepest state, but I look for restoration in it. And I fight back with nutrition and exercise.

This week I am battling The Big Sleep because I am sick. I’m sacrificing several days of a personal retreat–during which my plan was to read and research careers–to a chest cold. I’m either too uncomfortable, or too drowsy from antihistamines, to read or write for more than a couple of hours per day. And I haven’t left the house in four days except to go to the doctor. I’m sleeping, resting, and restoring.

I have to believe that the time that feels wasted this week will return to me in greater energy later, after I rest.

Today was a snow day where I live, a great day to stay inside and take care of the foot-and-a-half-high Stack of miscellaneous, disorganized paper that needs filing. I am proud to say that I got the bottom of The Stack, while also setting up my 2010 bills files, consolidating files for work projects, and creating a special bin for projects that need attention.

I enjoy David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” diagram, but I am not good at organizing the items that I can’t complete in 2 minutes. These are the things that need to either get filed away into the archive, examined later as part of a project, or trashed. When I can’t make up my mind, or don’t want to take the time to put it where it belongs, a piece of paper just gets added to The Stack.

Stuff at the bottom of The Stack was two years old!

In a perfect world, there will be no Stack. I will make the time, in tiny increments, to put paper where it needs to go when it is first in my hands. I won’t keep things in view until I can decide whether to keep them (which I don’t do–they get forgotten in The Stack until I get a day like today to do filing–just filing).

Is there such a perfect world? How does an older person learn such habits? How many times will I need to read “Getting Things Done” before I get it?

In this wired world, it’s heretical to desire simplicity. We tend to want more tasks to prove our worth, more connections so we feel important, and more ways to engage so we can validate what we’re doing.

I’m always in dread of what is slipping through the cracks. Whose Evite did I forget to answer? Is 2:30 am too late to send a text to a coworker? And if I send it, am I a dweeb for working at 2:30 am?

I want the anxiety to stop. I want to stop the tweeting.

But on the other hand, I do want to stay relevant enough to retire well.

What endeavor could I take on to give my life the peace and calm I crave, and yet have value in a culture that hinges on the next great iPhone app?

I think the answer is: integrity.

Integrity is something that everyone wants, few achieve, and almost nobody understands. The word integrity shares a root with integrated and integer: whole.

–noun

1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.
3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship’s hull.

Can I achieve integrity? Can I help others do the same?

Saturday, the day after I cleaned out my desk at the office. It was like a “last day” but without a party. After all, I’m a contractor, and I’m only going on vacation–I’m not leaving. Two weeks from now, I will come back and pick back up on several projects–on a reduced schedule of 15 hours per week.

Saturday at the Galaxy Diner, listening to the radio do an All 80s Weekend (playing now: Michael Jackson, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”), eating french fries and setting up a blog. Here at the diner, there’s the perfect balance of human activity and isolation to keep me focused on my work.

What makes this Saturday beautifully different from all the recent Saturdays I can remember is, now that I cleaned out my desk and declared “vacation,” I’m not tempted to use my spare time to keep any client or boss happy. I’m working on my blog, this blog. I’m building this for me.