Is Anyone Else Exhausted from Chasing 'More'?
Plus, this week's hard pass and happy yes.
On the first Monday of each month, I share the included essay with all subscribers. To get access to everything, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Quick heads-up: I’ve got classes coming up that will be free or discounted for paid subscribers. I’m teaching a series of classes, Relationship Fundamentals, where paid subscribers get to choose two. An email will go out later this week with all the info and the schedule.
Hard Pass to overscheduling and overcommitting myself.
When I found myself doing mental gymnastics trying to fit in a last-minute invitation, I paused and checked in with myself. I really wanted to be available to do the thing and also my inner [recovering] people pleaser had definitely shown up. When I prioritised my needs and considered the impact of saying yes, it became obvious I needed to say no. I think when we overload ourselves, we often assume it’s with stuff we had no desire to do. Sure, sometimes it is. But we can also find it tricky to say no and then wind up overloading ourselves with stuff we’d love to do but don’t have the bandwidth or know going ahead will have a knock-on effect on our well-being. By saying no, I said yes to enjoying my other commitments and being able to relax. There will be other yeses.
Happy Yes to sending this newsletter ‘late’.
We’ve had a fun Easter weekend catching up with various pals we haven’t seen for ages, chilling, and getting into a heated argument over whether one or two full houses constituted winning the game of Bingo. When I woke up yesterday, I remembered that it was a holiday and soon realised that I needed to have a breather and be immersed in the day with family instead of rushing myself to get everything sorted before we headed out. As soon as I made the decision, I turned over and slept until one o’clock, so, clearly, I needed the rest.
Thanks for all the money book recommendations. I suddenly had a surge of emails yesterday. Keep ‘em coming!
Is Anyone Else Exhausted from Chasing 'More'?
Am I on the right path?
Am I living up to my potential and purpose?
Could I do or be more?
Have I missed the boat (even though I’m not even sure of what “the boat” is or the destination)?
Do you sometimes have a nagging feeling, thought, that you could, should, be doing something more even though you’ve done plenty and will no doubt do other things? Maybe you don’t even feel like you’ve done a lot even though you have. Yeah, I feel you.
It’s as if you go from your teens and twenties where there’s, of course, a level of angst about work, relationships and figuring your life out while simultaneously knowing you’re not supposed to have it all figured out to being older and sometimes obsessing about whether you’re on the right path, doing the right thing or screwing up somewhere and ‘behind’. And this might all occur while having achieved some or a lot of the things you used to strive for and knowing there are other things that aren’t for you.
In my twenties, I didn’t spend a great deal of time pondering my path, purpose or potential as I have in recent years. It’s not as if, for instance, my career or romantic life were going swimmingly, but, to my mind, this was to be expected given my age. Also, thinking about my “path” or my “purpose” was not in my vocabulary at that time. Growing up in Ireland, they used to call pondering such things naval gazing. I figured everything in my life could be solved by finally being “good enough”. You know, do more people pleasing.
In the English/Irish/Jamaican/Chinese culture of my upbringing, you go to school, go to university, get a respectful job that your parents can ideally boast about to the neighbours, climb the career ladder, get the house, car, etc., or meet someone, get engaged, get married while doing these, have a kid or few, get more things, retire, die.
About a hot minute after starting the last job I had before becoming self-employed — working in media sales on client and agency side for the biggest IT publisher in the UK at the time — I knew I had no desire to keep climbing the ladder to the top. I didn’t want anyone’s job or to become like any of the bigwigs. The “having it all” that the nineties promised really wasn’t all that attractive; it was tiring.