The Compulsion to Optimize

You’re reading The Ten AM, a Tuesday check-in for the parents who chose the kitchen table over the classroom. Think of this as the group text you actually want to read—a quiet moment for us to connect from one living room to another about the beauty, the mess, and the hard truths of raising humans in the wild. 

Welcome to The Slow Pour.

We’ve officially rolled into February, the month of questionable weather and even more questionable motivation levels. All month long, we’re digging into homeschooling rhythms. Not the rigid, military-drill kind, but the kind that actually lets us breathe. To kick things off, let’s poke at that twitchy, lingering itch to optimize every single second of the day as if we’re being graded by a panel of invisible, very judgmental experts.

The quickest way to ruin a perfectly good afternoon is to decide it needs to be "educational."

We have this bizarre, modern twitch where we can’t just let a moment exist; we have to interrogate it for its academic value. I do it, too. I see my kids watching an ant carry a leaf, and immediately think we need to buy an ant farm. (We don’t need to buy an ant farm).

We go for a walk around the neighborhood, and I feel like a failure if we don’t identify at least three types of cacti and discuss their water-retention properties.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that if a moment isn’t being maximized for our children’s development, it’s a moment wasted. But in the frantic hustle to turn every second into a learning opportunity, we often realize we’ve accidentally sucked the oxygen out of the room. We are so busy teaching our kids how to analyze life that we’ve forgotten to show them how to live it.

It’s not that we’re doing it wrong. It’s that we’re so busy being the Lead Instructor that we’ve forgotten how to be the person who just enjoys the view sometimes.

Have you ever felt like your brain has just become one giant, rolling syllabus? Like when you’re looking at a beautiful sunset, and your first thought is, "I should probably explain the physics of light refraction," instead of just, Wow. Or when the pressure to keep up with the news, with the neighbors, with the imaginary version of "The Perfect Homeschooler" on your feed, starts to feel like you’re constantly performing for an audience that isn’t even there.

As easy as it is to fall into that trap of being always in learning mode, your kids don’t need you to be a 24/7 information kiosk. They just need you.

When you stop trying to maximize every waking second, you trade the rigidity of a schedule for the ease of a rhythm. One is measured with a stopwatch. The other is felt by touch.

And honestly? The pulse is a much better travel companion.

I realized this somewhere on I-10, in that space where the 'to-do' list finally stops shouting. As we were driving down the freeway last weekend, something hit me. For the first time in a long time, I felt a total, bone-deep peace with the person I’ve become. I wasn’t thinking about keeping up. I wasn’t worrying if we were on track or if I was falling behind in the invisible race against everyone else.

I sat in the passenger seat staring at the desert sunrise, and for the first time in an embarrassingly long time, I actually felt like a person. Not a service provider or a human logistics coordinator, but a woman with a pulse. I looked at the hawk gliding overhead and actually saw it, instead of immediately wondering how to turn its flight path into a science credit. I looked at the terrain and could almost feel the desert grass crunching under my boots, a sound so specific and real it makes a digital calendar feel like a joke. And I realized how much I genuinely, deeply love the desert earth tones. The blues, the greens, the browns... somehow looking out that window, I finally felt like I know myself again.

I’d felt that sense of knowing myself again the day before, too, when I went out to the desert to practice a new hobby of mine — archery.

This is the first time I’ve picked up something purely because I love it. Not because my husband is obsessed with it and I’m supporting him, and not because my kids need a ride to it and I’m tag-along-momming for the ride. It’s mine (and my kids too, but also, mine). It truly feels like me.

And I’m feeling that sense again with my work. Finally, after years of chasing the "more, more, more" in the online coaching world, I’ve stopped. Now, I’m feeling more at peace with where I am in my career, helping others find ease, simplicity, and family connection.

That’s an important lesson, especially as we slide into Olympics season. We’re about to be bombarded with the message that only the podium matters. We watched Cool Runnings this week to get into the spirit, and I was struck by that classic line:

"A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

We do this with our kids and our schedules. We think that if we can just hit the "Gold Medal" standard of a perfect day—every box checked, every moment optimized—we’ll finally be doing it right. But if you aren't enough when you're just sitting in the desert sand with no accolades to your name, a perfect homeschool schedule isn't going to fix it.

Homeschooling is basically a giant hall pass to ditch the gold medal mentality. It means our success isn't defined by a test score or a college acceptance letter. When I’m rooted—archery, desert grass, and all—I don’t need a spreadsheet to prove I’m a 'good' mom. I’m already fine. And when I’m fine, my kids are finally free to learn from a place of peace instead of pressure.

And here’s the thing about that dance — you can let yourself stop dancing to everyone else's tune. This isn’t about adding "Find Myself" to your already-overloaded checklist. It's about letting the pressure to be a 24/7 educator finally drop off your shoulders.

Your kids will have a much easier time finding their own joy if they see you enjoying yours. You’re allowed to feel the grass without turning it into a quiz. You’re allowed to be enough without the medal. When you stop the grind of more and just allow yourself to stay here, you give your children the only thing they can’t get from a textbook…

…the sight of a parent who has finally, mercifully, exhaled. A parent who is genuinely, quietly happy.

XO,

Kimberly Crossland

P.S. Because I’m allergic to giving you a philosophy without a roadmap, I’m currently elbow-deep in creating the Full Ten AM Edit Guide. It’s a blueprint for designing a rhythm on your own terms—one that prioritizes connection and simplicity over the "more, more, more" of the world. Think of it as your official permission slip to reclaim the coziness of that ten a.m. hour without the performance anxiety.