A few years ago I stopped making New Year’s Resolutions of the impossible-to-achieve variety, and made a shift that amounted to a eureka moment for my self esteem. It happened the year I decided that this year, my New Year’s resolution was going to be something that I already do, thereby exponentially increasing the chances of sticking to it. Specifically, I decided that instead of putting so much artificial pressure on myself to read yoga classics and self-help books (that was during my yoga teaching years), I was only going to read fiction novels of my own choosing, for one solid year. In fact, I was not going to allow myself to even consider dipping into anything but pure, raw, gratuitous fiction, no matter who tried to sell me on the new Deepak Chopra, the old Rumi, or the newest pivotal must-have self-actualization masterpiece. And I had a built-in excuse to say, “Wow, I really wish I could read that, but unfortunately I made a New Year’s Resolution… Maybe next year.”
For one year, I had the time of my life reading completely made-up stories. And guess what. It was the first year I ever kept my New Year’s Resolution.
Since then, I have carried this philosophy of self-acceptance into other areas of my life.
Recently I struggled with a lot of career dissatisfaction. The truth is, I have never liked working. I’ve never really been happy in any job. I’ve always worked because I had to, while secretly anticipating the day when I would have an excuse to stop. (Children, lottery-winnings, really rich husband…. whatever. All quite unlikely scenarios considering I don’t play the lottery and am not generally attracted to rich men, or men who want children, for that matter. And I don’t particularly even believe in marriage.)
There are those things we want to want for ourselves. As my great high school friend Janice once said in a moment of true self-awareness, “I really want to like yogurt. It seems cool to like yogurt. But I just don’t.” I’ve always wanted to want to be a yoga teacher. I wanted this so much that I actually was a yoga teacher, for almost ten years. Then I realized that I didn’t really want to be a yoga teacher. I just wanted to want to be one.
Make sense?
Sometimes I wish I had a stronger desire to be a Buddhist. Being a Buddhist seems like something I should want to be. But when it comes right down to it, I’m missing the drive.
Similarly, I’ve always thought I should try harder to be a more kickass girl. (Shout out to Ivy, who once told me she couldn’t see me on a snowboard because I’m just not ‘kickass’ enough. At the time I thought she was so incredibly rude, and did she even know me? Truth is, she did know me, quite well. I really am not that kickass, and it turns out I hate snowboarding, and all snow sports, for that matter, and pretty much all sports, and anything that involves being simultaneously wet and cold, and/or scared, or requires a lot of physical energy in general.) It turns out that I’m too lazy.
In college, I wanted to be an artist. So badly that I talked my way into art school without a portfolio, and spent three years miserably trying to feel creative and talented while materializing projects that got decent recognition but that I had absolutely zero connection to. All the while expending so much energy on the output that I had the low-grade respiratory flu for four straight years. Because in the end, I didn’t really like making art. I just liked the idea of being an artist.
And then, about six months ago, something clicked. While working at a really lovely place where I still, somehow, felt completely miserable, I had another eureka moment. I looked back on all of the jobs and companies and career changes, and, desperately trying to find a commonality that would manifest as a spark of motivation to do something else, I realized that there is one thing I have enjoyed about every job I’ve had: putting things in order. Specifically, things on paper. And by “paper”, I mean the computer. And by “things”, I mean words.
We all have a gift, and mine just happens to be a geekily boring, albeit useful one. I can spell like a motherfucker. And I get punctuation. I recently read the seminal punctuation manual When You see An Adjective, Kill It! in less than two days, on the bus. I was riveted. I love punctuation like some people love politics, or sports, or… yoga. It’s dorky, I realize. But in much the same way that I once embraced the concept of the Utterly Achievable New Year’s Resolution, I now get that if you want to be successful in a job, you gotta’ pick a job that you are practically already doing, voluntarily. That way, it doesn’t feel like “work”.
