Mon Apr 27 2026, 19:34:31 +0200

Being Fine With Not Finishing Things

I have a personality trait that makes it challenging to accept unfinished work.

It manifests itself in compulsive habits such as creating endless lists, fiddling with them, deleting, re-creating them, in a deeply unfulfilling quest to feel like I’m living.

What’s depressing is that the reward I give myself for completing tasks is more tasks. Somewhere in this, I concluded that this behavior directly maps to a latent fear of death, or rather, a form of anxiety about dying after having lived an unfulfilled life.

As I’m not a religious person, such an attitude runs counterintuitive to what I would expect from myself, yet, here I am. The other plausible explanation is that I must have picked up another set of convictions that lead me to associate unfinished work and planned work to the quality of my life.

I have a faint feeling that the key to freeing myself from this prison of my own making is acccepting that I will not accomplish everything that …