I am one “LEZ GOOOOOOO!” Slack message away from joining a desert cult. Aspiring is exhausting. So is vision boarding, having a 5-year plan, and manifesting our intentions for the future.
When I was back in the US for the holidays, everyone wanted to know what our next move was. And when I was on retreat the following week, my brilliant (overworked) boss asked about my hopes and dreams.
The honest answers are I don’t know and walk around with a cup of coffee. Total anticlimax. But each person I said these words to purred with pleasure. As if not having goals was as silky as the cool side of the pillow.
None of us wants to survive. We all want to thrive. But most of us are caught in the strive trap. Fighting our way upstream because instinct tells us to. But constant achievement feels a little like being the kid who collects the best toys only to never play with them. We’re all tending to our ulcers and spending our best skin years face-down in a laptop when all we really want to do is drink $2 wine in Italy and watch Naked Attraction.
Fact: When we spend our lives in forecast mode, we miss the good things that are good right now. Plus we’re all shitty oracles anyway. Reality never aligns with our star signs. I never could have journaled myself into van life. And currently, I can’t “manifest” a way to give my soul the two things it so desperately wants: funeral work and full-time travel. (Stop laughing.)
So I just, set it down. I surrender to not having a fucking clue and trust that planning is the illusion that I have control. Do you even want to meet someone who has it all figured out? I don’t, because they’re all life coaches.
What if instead of climbing trees, we’re meant to be enjoying the shade?
What if being a bump on a log for a hot minute unlocks the secrets of the universe?
What does it say about self-care that the best sleep of my life has been in a Scottish lay by?
And what if our golden years are right now, when our joints can still carry us to the good cheese shops?
I asked my husband recently if the concept of a New Year is helpful or harmful. If people pinning NEW YEAR NEW ME dreams on another orbit around the sun is cathartic or yet another opportunity to cut ourselves off at the ankles. He feels we need the clean break to start again. But I wonder if we’re simply reseting old patterns.
I think expecting nothing more than the earth under your feet and a friend calling you a chicken tender ho is the secret sauce of a life that is finite but fulfilling. Please, dear reader, don’t treat your existence like the good candles you only burn when company is coming.
