This morning, I was lying in bed and enjoying my cotton blankets. I had slept 12 hours, which is the most I’ve slept in 2 weeks due to flu/possible pneumonia. As I lingered and enjoyed the waffled texture of my blanket, I thought about how Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations said we should not lie in bed and avoid the work of a human.

Work of a Human. I have been applying for jobs but I’m met with rejection after rejection; even this morning, I received a rejection text. So, what did I do? I retooled my resume and applied for a job I have a 99% chance of not getting; I wanted to try anyway.

And then I thought of the book I read by Jordan Grumet, The Purpose Code, and how we should strive to live for “little p purpose” as that is what gives life its meaning.

Both Aurelius and Grumet both see human work as social behaviour that benefits us as well as others. I like that concept very much.

So, I stretched my limbs in bed. My Apple Watch told me it was time to stand up. So, I did. I shuffled around in my early morning routine and sat on the couch for almost two hours.

Gumbo, my chihuahua loved the 12 hours spent in my big bed and was grouchy about being awakened; he sat on me for the 2 hours I lounged on the couch.

Finally, I checked messages from a friend. I took Gumbo out and fed him. Fed my fish. Messaged my oldest daughter. Applied for that long-shot job. Got the day started.

But, as I sat down to write this post, I was still not satisfied that I had done the proper work of a human today.

I got to thinking about what “little p purpose” means to me. I write a lot to process my emotions. I also like to write things that help others. I often think about how I work through emotions on my blog is also instructional and modelling for others how to use writing to develop a healthier life.

But sometimes that isn’t very apparent and people read posts and feel confused about why I have published that content to my blog. I need to work on that. In fact, I shared that with Chat GPT, and it helped me come up with a rubric for discerning when my writing is more therapeutic and private and when it is writing that others can benefit from. A future post will feature this rubric, and I hope it helps others as many of us who blog on living with mental health challenges can be overly confessional; this can cause problems in other areas of our lives.

Back to “little p purpose”: I want to write short e-books on how to recover from psychosis, especially maternal psychosis, in a way that helps women who experience it to not feel alone, to not feel like a failure as a mother, and to trust that they can be successful as a mother. I want to take away the stigma around what women can sometimes suffer after having children. (You can read about the subject of my book via this link.)

“Little p purpose”, for me, is not about being a New York Times Best Selling Author; it’s about doing something good, born from my suffering, that gives hope to others that life is not only worth living, but also rich and rewarding psychologically and emotionally.

Marcus Aurelius writes in his Meditations that people have two choices really. To do something. Or to avoid doing something. The latter applies to me. I can make up 1 million reasons why writing about this subject would be frightening, socially awkward, and maybe even detrimental to any type of career that I would want to try.

But, I think, if I picture my last days, as Grumet talks about, it won’t be a career that gave my life meaning and purpose; it would be the social work to help others overcome the challenges of recovering from psychosis, especially as mothers.

Today, the work of a human that I will be doing is research and outlining for the book I want to write. I am going to the gym with my oldest daughter and plan a light cardio workout followed by pool and hot tub with sauna time. I’m going to watch YouTube videos about self-development and motivation. And I’m going to keep a positive attitude about the job search.

The reason why I don’t think I will get the job I applied for today is because I keep applying with this company, and I’m rejected. So, I figured my persistence could be notable when applying for a sales position, even though sales is actually kind of outside my skills profile.

Even if I don’t get that job, I can focus on writing. And that makes me feel happy and hopeful.

Thank you for reading and following along on my journal of healthy living. I wish you a happy and hopeful day full of “little p purpose” and the work of being a human.

*About Using ChatGPT: I shared this blog post with ChatGPT after I posted it and it told me that I should not have shared the maternal psychosis book thoughts within this framework. I pushed back on its data set being stigmatising because AI labeled it as stumbling into something uncomfortable for the reader. The goal of writing about psychosis is to make it less uncomfortable and socially recognised as an aspect of the human condition for some of us. It also did not really like how I shared my day and thoughts as they came about. The model wanted me to treat my blog as a commercial venture, but I pushed back as blogs have originally been about human lives and connection-not about selling a product or idea. So, it is ok to ask ChatGPT some things but you cannot rely on it to grade and understand intricately human content.