Whole and Worthy.
Career, family, salary – the ledger calls you incomplete whichever box is empty. She asks who decided, and answers for herself.
The Russian word she's playing with – polnotsennost, being "whole and worthy" – is the word the checklist culture uses for a completed life. Career but no family: incomplete. Family but no job: incomplete again. Her question cuts under the whole ledger: who decided that being whole and worthy means covering every area of life?
Her evidence is a year that the ledger called worthless: a person who couldn't legally work, and in that unpaid year built apps and a crypto bot, made amulets, learned, was present – and by his own words grew more than in the five years before. Since nobody paid for it, does it not count? She asks the same about her own maternity leave: grown tenfold, salary zero. Being Whole is this site's answer to the same question – wholeness never came from ticking off every area of life, and nothing about you is waiting for a payslip to become real.
Her closing is the root sentence dressed for this occasion: even success means something different to each of us. Understand what YOU want – and walk toward it.
Complete incompleteness.
Let's talk about being "whole and worthy". Here's how it goes: you work, you see your friends – but without a husband and kids you feel somehow incomplete. You marry, give birth, are temporarily out of work – incomplete again. Where does all this come from? To be whole and worthy, do I really have to cover every area of life? And who decided that?
By the way, as an example: for a year in Russia my husband didn't work, because by law he couldn't. And when my people found out, there were a lot of questions – and a lot of looks. But in that year my husband made the Treko Viz app, a notes app for IT people, built a crypto bot, made amulets, studied new things in IT, spent nine wonderful months of pregnancy with me and, in his words, "grew more in a year than in the last five or so." But since it wasn't paid, it doesn't count? 🤔
I'm on maternity leave now; even if I badly want to work, I can't. I'm also in another country, let's not forget. In these 4 months I've grown x10 🤭 But yes, nobody pays me for that. Then what is maternity leave for? I'm a good mum, but I also want something for myself. I'm trying everything I like right now. I'm giving room to everything my body and soul want to do. And where that leads – we'll find out a little later 🥰
And the most important thing: we are all different. With different wishes, paces of life, ambitions and ideas. Don't try to fit yourselves into other people's frames and successful successes – be yourselves. After all, even success means something different to each of us ❤️
Understand what it is that YOU want – and walk toward it. ☺️
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan