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I've power-drilled my way to happiness

<span>Photograph: Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Getty Images

During Lockdown 2, I stopped pretending that self-improvement was a priority. Baking, getting fit, learning a language – all of it was removed from the to-do list and replaced with: “Get through the day without screaming. Then cake!” Nonetheless, some firsts happened without fanfare, including the proudest achievement of my life: I bought a drill. And my God, I used it.

I used it to fix a handle on the kitchen door. Sure, the new handle is the wrong size and you can still see the grooves of the previous one, but every time I push the handle down and the door opens, I feel a rush of satisfaction. “I am the magician,” I think.

It’s the same with everything I have drilled: the flimsy coat hook held up with screws and dreams (“You’re the best, hook,” I think when I walk past, “keeping my dog-eared cardigan elevated like that!”); even the “cat shelf” that is barely ever used (“Shame the kitten can’t appreciate how great this is,” I think).

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But the other firsts do not conjure the same serotonin. When I see my first jogging shoes – used, but not enough, according to self-imposed standards – I feel shame. Same for the sourdough starter in the glass jar, a relic of my ambition, dead in its museum case.

I ask myself, why the difference? And can come to only one conclusion: that expectations are to blame. If we expect ourselves to do something, we disappoint when we don’t. But if we expect nothing, we can rejoice in the mere attempt.

And so, for the rest of this lockdown, I tell myself to see things differently: to smile at all the efforts, even if trivial, even if half-hearted, even if limply hanging off the back of my bedroom door. I know I said I was going to give up on self-improvement – but hey, at least I tried..