I Always Feel Lazy: Exploring My Feelings of Insatiableness
Although I do many things, and I can acknowledge the many challenges and responsibilities I take on; Student director for Oakland Unified School District (2nd year), Chair of Mayor Barbara Lee's Youth Advisory Council, intern for the Mayors office, a youth member for the Black Organizing Project, with additionally their being many subcommittee's and councils. These various commitments and responsibilities take up a lot of my time, even as of now I barely find downtime and just me time, the problem when I get downtime or me time is I feel very, very lazy. I sometimes purposely fill up my schedule, day in and day out just to avoid this feeling of laziness or better yet to feel like I am doing something, why?
I often find myself avoiding a complete day free from work, worry, and stress. Because when I do find myself with nothing to work on, worry about, or stress over I become overwhelmed with a wave of disappointment and almost disgust rushing towards me as I lay in bed on a Saturday afternoon. Its weird, my work gives me a reason to get out bed every morning, a reason to keep pushing despite any lingering gloomy feelings. Although to myself it's as if have no reason to lay down and feel free from stress, work, or worry. Yes, I need to rest and upkeep a balance so I can better produce in my work plus every other aspect of my life (which I do but on a relatively small scale). Sometimes it feels like I just simply, cant.
Childhood
As a boy, the majority of my time was spent with my mother, up until I was about 12 years old. We moved 8 times during these years, during those years I saw my mommy have 2-3 jobs and multiple side hustles. I had everything I asked for, while my mom did nothing but work to provide for us which was the complete opposite of lazy. Never complaining, or pointing any blame for our hardships, when things got hard it was only me and my mommy. Many times, despite my young age I was the only person she had to confide to, cry with, and seek refuge in. I saw my mother struggle and stay strong. Despite the world crumbling on top of us, she held it up so I could focus on becoming who I am today.
My mother worked non-stop, if she had any free time it was permitted to extra hours doing hair, or devoted to one of her many side hustles. I believe she got this trait from my grandmother Ophelia Long, she frequently tells me how my grandmother never stopped working no matter how tired she may have felt. Although I was born during the latter half of my grandmothers life, post retirement. I was still able to see that non-stop work ethic, as a retired CEO of highland hospital and former president/founder of the Black Nurses Association, my granny always found something to do. Whether it was cleaning the house, going to the store, or making food, there was never a dull moment of just resting.
I have spent the entirety of my life around Black women, and the majority of my upbringing was spent learning from, and in company of Black women. I have first hand seen and been a witness of the unfair treatment toward black women and the unreal expectations society continues to place upon them. Everyone expects Black women to be super, and figure everything out on their own. To "make it happen", while also constantly diminishing and stacking up more expectations day in and day out. I believe this has a lot to do with the way I was raised. The lessons I was taught and fears that were instilled in me, comes directly from the fears and expectations society has burdened on the village of Black women who raised me. Although I will never experience those same acts unfair treatment and expectations, I am a direct result of those internalized feelings that derives from such unfair and deliberately destructive treatment.
Throughout my childhood my mother's hard work showed, she was tired all the time but never slowed down. I saw this showcase of hard work first hand of course living in the same house, but to herself and others, her hard work showed in different ways rather than outright finical success. She was successful through me being healthy, happy, and surrounded by a village of love and care. My grandmother showed her hard work by never letting anyone down, pleasing everyone and upholding commitments in her quest to help anyone in needing of such. Although I was not present for my grandmothers glory years, my mother often tells me very trying stories. Many about how my grandmother was so obsessed with ensuring a quality livelihood for others that even after she retired she could not stop. Eventually, giving away all of her money to people she thought she was helping.
Year 12
The year I turned 12 marked a lot of significant change in my life. As a growing boy my mother decided it was about time that I began to spend the majority of my time with my father. I went to go stay with pops as my primary home. Spending the majority of my time with my mom up until this point, I of course was a mommas boy and generally cuddled a lot. My father however was the opposite, having a very tuff parenting style and had an overall mindset of "do it yourself". I touched on this aspect of our relationship a lot in my piece; Why Cant I Cry. I was terrified of my dad and anytime he spoke to me I trembled, he would rather you fear him than like him. Although there was an aspect of fear, I also highly respected and looked up to him in many ways, adopting his seriousness and work ethic.
Speaking about work ethic, my father ensured that I would never skip a day of work. From a young age my dad put me in any masculine physical sport you could think of; basketball, baseball, soccer, boxing, even karate. Coincidently enough, year 12 also marked when I decided to be done with sports. Prior to my upcoming story, I have tried to tell my dad that I was tired of playing sports because it simply wasn't what I wanted to do. He would often communicate how I needed to play a sport to stay in shape, and that I needed to occupy my time with something besides just laying around or playing my game console. When I told my father how I no longer wanted to play basketball (which was the sport I was playing at the time) he instantly told me how I needed to do something else. I let him know that I would call my old boxing coach and begin training, but I had no intention of such an action. I spent the next couple of weeks and/or months going to school and coming straight home.
During these weeks or months my father hounded me, constantly asking when I was going to get back in the gym and saying I was getting fat. This never really bothered me besides when he would express that he felt that I was lazy and didn't wanna "work for real" (a term gym rats use to describe a good workout). I hated hearing this and honestly, I heard it quite a lot, there wasn't a time where I spoke to my father and didn't hear these words. On the outside, these words never did anything to me and that may have played a reason as to why my father never changed his way of communication. On the inside I couldn't stand it, eventually giving in and calling my boxing coach.
In the boxing gym I spent countless hours training, crying, sweating, and bleeding. just to prove that I am not lazy, and that I do have a hard work ethic. But I also found peace in being away and training for hours, burying myself. In some ways it made me a better person, more disciplined, and did of course heighten the physical shape I was in. But for a long time I never stopped attempting to diminish that feeling of laziness, that voice in the back of my head saying I wasn't doing enough, asking myself why haven't I worked out today, and telling me that I'm lazy.
Junior Year
Arriving into my junior year of high school, I also began my 1st year on the OUSD school board as 1 of 2 student directors. In my role as student director, I was elected by students to represent all 34'000 kids enrolled in the district. My job is to ensure students stay the number 1 priority in the district by advocating student needs, and meeting with district leaders voicing student priorities and problems. As a Black boy mainly raised by Black women it was very important to the women in my life to endow me with the ability to speak for myself to whomever I may need to. Because of this, I have been bestowed with the ability to speak what some call "truth to power", I put it in quotation marks because before I got into this position I was seen as "argumentative". Even in classrooms my teachers describe me as "Enjoys to debate with teacher". Before my first school board meeting, I remember specifically being told to make sure I watch the way I speak when addressing school board members. To make sure that I’m using proper language and to watch my mouth and temper. This was nothing new for me as a Black boy.
As the year progressed, I steadily was introduced to the concept of a dysfunctioning team. As a teenager, I am no stranger to a dysfunctioned team and/or drama, I am also not a fan of either and steadily attempt to avoid such spaces. I attempt to avoid and move myself out of these spaces due to me being easily overstimulated, not good around large crowds, and not being able to focus in a stressful environment. During these board meetings I was exposed to all 3. There were usually very large crowds of community members yelling and upset (for good reason), our board were often fussing and arguing amongst ourselves, all of this created a stressful environment for me. I wasn't the only one being impacted by this environment, the community was being impacted along with the board as we could not get any work done or make any decisions due to there being a lack of respect for each others ideas.
As a result to this I began speaking truth to power. I actively advocated for our board to work as a team and act with decorum. This way we can better develop plans as a board focused around our number 1 priority, the students. I frequently advocated for practices focused around team building, proactivity, self reflection, and restorative justice. What I was preaching sounded pretty radical but also practical and the community agreed. Because of my age and relatively mature views, the community backed up my ideologies and people began putting a face to the name, Maximus Simmons. As the community around me started to understand who I am, a lot of people began seeing me as a leader, one of their leaders and representatives. These new perspectives people began forming about me came with expectations, expectations I believed I should upkeep for my community, constituents, and myself. As these presumptions of who I now was began forming in the eyes of the public, and in the mind of myself, I couldn’t help but feel lazy. It was such a weird feeling, everyone constantly praising and thanking me for standing top and sticking up for them. But to me, it was as if I wasn’t doing enough and could do more, and a lingering feeling that I wasn’t doing anything at all. This made me put more time into my work, scheduling more meetings with anyone requesting help, actively finding anyone(s) that needed service.
As everyone in my life during this time pleaded that I needed to slow down, and be a kid. People additionally insinuated how I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything and eventually, I would burn out. A lot of my teachers didn’t respect what I was attempting to do, and would tell me how my priorities are not straight. No one ever attempted to communicate how I could continue my journey, while still being successful with my increasing responsibilities. So if I wanted to continue and prove everyone right that I was the leader everyone thought, and I thought of myself to be. I was also attempting to prove everyone wrong, that wouldn’t burn out and could handle everything. It was up to me to learn how to balance school, expectations, poor mental health, being a school board member, and trying to be better. In my mind I could think of one thing, only if I could show people that i’m doing something and I had something tangible to prove I can be and do all these things. Only if I could show myself, and finally believe it.
I never stopped, and this would be my most trying, and mentally challenging year (in my 17 years of life, lol).
Present
It wouldn't be up until recently that something tangible would appear, The Help a Teacha Out Initiative. This was the very first event and initiative that I coordinated and planned as the sole lead with a team around me. My team for the Mayor raised community funded classroom supplies to help out OUSD teachers. I was able to show people the importance of interdependence, why our city and school district coming together will be beneficial for the town (what Oakland natives call Oakland). These were 2 things I constantly preached about, I finally led by example and turned words into action. Showing everyone I can handle it all, and still be a leader for people, and I also showed myself. I thought after my initial event for the initiative where we gave away the supplies, that I would feel accomplished. That the feelings of laziness would go away and I can finally pat myself on the back and say, ”I‘m doing something”. I had a silly thought, thinking that after my event I would go home, sit on my bed, feeling very accomplished and content with myself and cry. But, none of that happened. After the event I sat around for a long time, waiting for those feelings to kick in. It was a silly thought because I would never, not feel lazy if I don't understand the other perspective of giving myself grace.
Realizing that doing something tangible didn’t stop me from feeling lazy, enacted me to seek understanding of why I felt this way, instead of just understanding that I felt this way. I looked back on my life story to look at what I’ve done, re-read the emails and messages people have sent expressing thanks and inspiration in what I'm doing. But, most importantly I had to remind myself that I am not lazy, and realize that I am doing a lot and have helped people. I had to learn to distinguish the other voices in my head calling me lazy from my own. Accepting that these thoughts were indeed not my own, instead they are repeated words that after hearing so much, I began to believe. I had to look within myself, look at what I'm doing and how I act right here and now to find new words that describe who I am.
When my emotions are high and something doesn't go as planned I still blame myself and lack self grace. The difference is I am now able give myself time to sit back relax and think for a moment or multiple moments, so I can look back at what I was able to do and who I was able to help. I no longer linger and instead, use as knowledge to improve. Although I am not perfect at giving myself grace, I am steadily improving. I no longer say verbally that I am lazy and although there's still more I believe can do, I am able to acknowledge I am doing something. Furthermore, instead of attempting to get everything done at once, working on various projects all at the same time. I now am able to give myself the time needed to finish and perfect these various projects. Because, I now understand I am not lazy.