September 25, 2020

the push & pull of hustle

it happened just this past week; a sudden realization.


simmering for days—weeks, probably. it finally bubbled to the surface, enough that i felt a pretty sharp shift inside which caused me to pause. and think. and evaluate where the heck this is coming from, what i'm actually feeling, and why. i tend to feel a lot of things, a lot of the time (just your typical enneagram 4) but this was somewhat different. it was something that was almost familiar, vaguely recognizable, but also new and raw and a bit too heavy to ignore. it's taken me some time to collect my thoughts, but i think i'm beginning to narrow it down to this: 


"there is much discontentment to be found in the comparison of this current season of life to another's; there's a loss of joy in the frantic rush to always be doing more, better, faster."


i'm sure, this is not a new concept, but i'm beginning to feel it's an all too subtle thing that sneaks up behind us when we least expect it to; i hardly even noticed it was happening before my eyes.



over the past months, i've been on a mission (actually, more like the past few years.) as a fairly young, 20-something-year-old, i've discovered this entrepreneurial spirit in me which is so fun and exciting and i honestly have fallen in love with the hustle of working towards an end goal(s)—especially really BIG, audacious goals that make me so dang giddy about the years ahead and what they could potentially hold. i have always been a huge dreamer, very optimistic about what the unknown future may look like. keeping an open mind, trying & learning new things, running full-steam ahead with these big dreams tucked underneath my arms—all are things that ignite a fire in me like nothing else. so that's what i did. 

on average, i fill my days with as much as possible—productivity and checklists and caffeinated drinks (mostly coffee) and frantically writing to-do lists and reminders of my swirling thoughts that could hardly wait for tomorrow—squeezing out every last hour i had before my head hit the pillow. 

& the thing is, all these things i've been doing to reach my goals have not been inherently bad in and of themselves, but somewhere along the lines, i have become tired. and drained. and spent. i, personally, began to feel the pressure to push out content for—many times, if i'm being honest—the likes and follows and numbers and statistics and to cross that laaast thing off my list for today, in the name of moving the needle just a little closer to my dreams. i began to misplace part of who i am at the very core—an artist, a creator, a dreamer—for shifting shadows of hurried days and blurred bedtimes.



don't get me wrong though—i really do love all the things i've been working on up until this point. i've been discovering more about how i'm wired, what my passions are, and using my gifts & talents as a catalyst for things to come, someday, which i absolutely love.


but what i'm realizing? i've slowly started to trade my authentic approach to creativity for checking off boxes & to-do lists; exchanging the gift of creating—simply for the joy of it—for curating the 'perfect' feed or coming up with just the right caption to *hopefully* drive more sales or gain more followers or finally get 100 likes or—does this sound silly of me when you read it out loud, in your head? am i the only one?


i think truthfully, that's where so many of us are. whether you have your own business or blog or simply your own corner of the interwebs, it can be far too easy for our gaze to wander. we start looking to the left and to the right, feeling the inner pull to get ahead of the person next to us. and so we hustle, hard. we put our nose to the grindstone and start sprinting towards our finish line, not stopping until we 'reach the top' or 'get x amount of followers' or can afford that beautiful new house or car or ____ too, because then, THEN i will have "arrived."


no, there has to be more to life than that.


& in all honestly, i don't want to be in that lane. i don't want to outrun the crowd, carrying the weight of my days on my shoulders, heavy with the pressure to always be striving for that next thing in life that i miss the extraordinary beauty right here, right now, right in front of me. this isn't to say i now have no more goals or am quitting everything i have started—absolutely not. but i do think small changes, adjustments of sorts, are much needed—even if that means re-prioritizing the use of my time and energy and headspace i have in this specific season. i still think hustle has a time and place, but even so, it must be met with such caution and structure and grace (upon grace.) 


"i don't want to outrun the crowd, carrying the weight of my days on my shoulders, heavy with the pressure to always be striving for that next thing in life that i miss the extraordinary beauty right here, right now, right in front of me." 


let's get back to creating just for fun, ok? to falling in love with our everyday, mundane moments (that are actually really uniquely beautiful.) go ahead, post that picture you snapped that's maybe a little sideways, a little blurry but oh, how you love it anyways and want to remember that exact moment, just as it was. put away technology for once (oof, this one is for me) and go outside—look up. notice how the cotton clouds change so fast yet so slow. feel the warm, glowing sun on your skin, the way it shines brilliantly through the trees. listen to the hundred little bird songs far up above and notice, wasn't that a blue jay that just passed by? 



maybe this post was really just for my own brain and heart to fully soak in, to lay it all out in the open—vulnerable and raw and real so i can start to reevaluate where to go from here. but hopefully, if you made it this far, you can find yourself somewhere in here too; in the push & pull of your own hours and days and what does that look like for you? are you truly content, in this season? what are you striving for? how are you feeling, actually? how do you spend you hours each day? what should needs to change? (truthfully, i'm just asking myself these things over & over.)


let us not go through our seasons of life without savoring each and every moment. soak it all in—even the smallest details. work hard? absolutely. but also stop and smell the roses too. take a day or night off, without guilt. build in the time for the much-needed heart and soul work, for we are all walking works-in-progress. share conversations and cups of coffee with a dear friend. dance in your kitchen as you make saturday morning pancakes, just because. (don't even bother to document it online—be completely present this time.) 


do something that makes your soul feel alive. 


if you need some inspiration, here are a few ideas:

  • read a book! a magazine! a newspaper! (the paper kinds, not digital)
  • take a daily walk around your neighborhood
  • learn to play the guitar or ukelele, just for fun
  • make a list of friends you've been wanting to see (contact 2 of them right now)
  • paint, draw, watercolor, scrapbook, cook, bake, sew—do anything creative
  • visit your local bookstore or thrift shop or park
  • do a 30-minute workout (cardio, HIIT, weightlifting—just move your body!)
  • go to bed early & set up a consistent sleep structure
  • go drink 16oz. of water right now (and a few more later too)
  • have a few friends over for a movie or game night
  • write out or journal your recent thoughts, prayers, or reflections
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