I would very much like to think that I am the kind of person who, when presented with a choice between attending a book club meeting with people I like to discuss a book I recently completed and sitting on my couch catching up with my sitcom viewing, would pick the book club meeting every time.

This is apparently not the case.

I have had a very long couple of weeks. I am wrung out exhausted. I was planning to go participate in a 108 sun salutation class and then to the book club last night, and instead I skipped it in favor of television. And i have no question in my mind that it was the right decision.

Because, as it turns out, the level of intellectual stimulation in my life needs to be balanced with an equal amount of not so intellectual stimulation. Like sitcoms. And while it’s healthy for the brain to learn new things and ponder and discuss new ideas, it is also healthy to laugh.

While this little epiphany does slightly change the way I look at myself, it does not make me nearly as ashamed as I would have expected. Because I feel like it’s in line with who I am. There is still a big ole’ part of me that wants to decide who I should be and take action to make sure I’m living up to the related ideals. But I’ve also been playing lately with the idea that instead of putting effort into deciding who I am, just maybe I should put some of that effort into instead discovering who I am.

Deciding who I am feels like it is based a great deal on who I want other people to think I am. Discovering who I am feels a lot more like it’s about noticing the reactions my body has to the things I do, and doing more of the things that feel good. Like last night, when I thought about going to yoga and the book club, something I’d actually been authentically looking forward to just a day earlier, I felt really tired. (To be fair, I was really tired, and more than a little sleep deprived at that. It actually occurred to me that driving across town to the book club and driving home by myself late that night was probably not the safest thing I could do, given that driving sleep deprived is as dangerous as driving drunk.)

Once I’d made the decision to do what actually appealed to me in the moment, namely sitting down on the couch and taking control of the remote and catching up on the funny shows, I felt better. Still tired, but knowing that I could just doze off on the couch at any time actually alleviated the dragging sense of exhaustion. I had a very pleasant evening.

And as for book club, I do expect to go back in January. I have no reason to believe I won’t really enjoy it…in a week when I’m not so sleep deprived that it’s probably unsafe for me to drive after dark. I am sorry that I missed the evening, because it would have been fun. I still think staying home and going to bed early was just the right choice in the moment. Maybe I can just be a person who sometimes doesn’t know what decision she’ll make until the situation actually presents itself. I can be all right with that.