What Have You Done Today?

It used to be the most shame-inducing question hurled toward me.

I often took it as a criticism or an accusation; a quiet way of asking what my worth was that day. What did I do that was productive?

Productive.

A word that still makes my stomach tighten.

Teachers. Parents. Peers. Bosses. Loved ones. Friends.

Each time, it felt like they were judging my value or challenging how I spent my time with that deceptively simple question:

“What have you done today?”

But I’ve learned it isn’t always meant as an attack.

I sure didn’t see it that way at first. I took it exactly as it sounded: simple curiosity over how my day unfolded and what activities I engaged in.

But then a stern teacher or an exasperated authority figure transformed it into a spotlight on everything I didn’t finish. It mutated into a rebuke over wasted time.

I still shake thinking back to when my teacher hovered over my desk with eyes burning into my notebook with not enough right words, according to the ticking clock, with the question boiling with disappointment and squeezing out guilt rather than an answer.

After years of hearing it, it became harder and harder to tell when the question was genuine wonder and when it was a critique. Eventually, I assumed it was judgment.

What you did wasn’t good enough.

But…

I did get things done. I always did.

It’s just that so much of what I battled through isn’t something people can easily quantify:

– pushing through executive dysfunction
– zoning out after overwhelm
– wrestling anxiety and perfectionism
– spinning up a thousand ideas when all I needed was to focus on one
– trying to excavate the knowledge I knew was in my brain but couldn’t always pull forward
– doing difficult tasks that didn’t align with the way my neurodivergent brain works

And after all that?

I still got things done.
Maybe not everything. Maybe not perfectly.
But I always tried.

I always did something.

There was always something accomplished that day, even if no one else could see it.

And sometimes surviving the day is the only thing we need to do.

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