So when this quarantine thing first
began I read this tweet from Jon Acuff.
He is one of my favorite authors. I
love the book *Finished* but in this thing
he was saying that you should never ever
wear your flannel pants or PJs or
sweatpants when you're working.
If you're staying at home you
should be showered. You should get
dressed.
And you should dress up nice because
after a few days flannel feels like
failure. Now, I love Jon Acuff
but in my experience flannel is
not failure. Flannel is comfort. Flannel
is flexibility. Flannel is being
completely unencumbered in your creative
process. If you're dressing up you're
constantly tugging at your outfit. You're
worrying about whether it's tucked in and how
you look and this and that. But there's
something powerful about saying,
"Appearance doesn't matter. I'm gonna dive
straight into my creative work and I'm
gonna get it done!"
In my experience flannel is freedom fabric.
And I mentioned this because just
today I saw a Los Angeles Times article
that was passing its way all the way
through Facebook and Twitter and all of
these people were saying, "Hey teachers,
you should be dressing up nice" and "If
you're staying at home you should dress
up nice" and "oh my gosh if you're going
to be on a Zoom call you should be
wearing your best." I totally disagree.
I think dressing however you feel like
is one of the few perks that we have
right now. Look, I can't go to a
restaurant. I can't see my family -- my
extended family. I can't go to a friend's
house. But one thing I can have is
comfort. One thing I can have is not
being judged about how I look. You know
what I'm wearing right now? I am wearing
this shirt. In case you don't know, that
is a Golden State Warriors shirt. Now if
you don't know anything about the Golden
State Warriors and you're not into
basketball, I'm just going to tell you they
are a trendsetter. The Golden State
Warriors were the first team that began
shooting three-pointers on
regular basis and having a small team with
movement and winning that way.
This year got off to a rocky start
but then they started the newest trend
in basketball. They were ahead of the
rest of the NBA this year. Basically they
quit the season before every other team
quit the season. Right? They canceled
it in like week number two. They're
trendsetters. So this is my team. The
Golden State Warriors. If you can't
see it these are sweatpants. And guess what?
I wore these sweatpants for the last
month. And in the last month I've been
crazy productive. In the last month I was
able to defend and finish my
dissertation. I was able to write a book.
I was able to put together a new course
that's fully online. I've put together
several webinars. I've been blogging. I've
been podcasting. I've been making free
resources for teachers. I have been in a
productive mode. Now some of this is just
me. It is my own way of coping with this
right now. So I don't get too anxious, I throw
myself into my creative work and at 5
o'clock I'm done and I hang out with my
family. That has been me choosing a healthy
coping strategy. It's to be as creative as
possible.
For me, I'm doing what I love on a
regular basis and I'm doing it with
sweatpants. And I'm ok with that.
I've been teaching four different classes
and I've been helping different
professors at my university get their
courses online and I have been loving
every minute of this. But I've also been
giving myself the permission on certain
days to stay in and sleep in a little
bit later and to do a little bit less.
I've been running and I've been weight
lifting and I've been making healthy
choices but some of those healthy
choices have been to take a day off,
taking it easier, to do a little bit less.
And my wife and I are super lucky that
our kids are self-directed. They
don't need a lot of help. The
teachers and their schools have been
awesome. And yet what we have chosen
to do is give ourselves the permission
to wear sweats. I think this actually
comes down to a deeper issue. Wear
whatever you want.
If dressing up and putting
yourself together
gives you that boost to take on the day,
then go for it. But if you're like me and
you just want to wear sweats and you
just want to wear a t-shirt or a
sweatshirt . . . If you're like me and you
just want to be casual, you know what?
That might be the very kind of comfort
that you need so you can dive straight
into your creative work. The bottom line
is this: don't ever let anybody tell you
what you should or shouldn't wear to
work when you're working by yourself at
home. You're making so many sacrifices
right now and it is smug and it is
arrogant to tell you that you shouldn't
be wearing sweat pants.
Screw that. Forget that. Wear whatever you
feel like wearing. If you want to wear a
dress, if you want to wear trousers. I'm not
Sure if there's anyone that still uses that term.
Maybe not if they're younger than 80. But
wear whatever you want to wear because
the bottom line is you are going tackle
the day in the best way that you see fit
and tackling the day might just be that
you got out of bed today and you did
something. Don't let people tell you
that you shouldn't wear a sweatshirt. That's
horrible advice. Wear your sweats
and wear them proudly. Wear your PJs and
wear them proudly. Wear that freedom
flannel and wear it proudly because in
the end of the day it's not going be
about what you wear, it's going to be about
what you do and more importantly, who you
are. And most importantly, who you love and
how well you love.