Wear Your Beautiful Clothes
When Doing More Is Really an Attempt to Control the Outcome
“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos
I refreshed the analytics page even though I had checked it only a few minutes earlier. The number had not changed, so I opened the project, reread the opening line, tested a button, and returned to the dashboard. My shoulders were tight and my eyes felt dry, but I kept moving between the same pages as though one of them might suddenly tell me what to do next.
The work was finished for the evening. Everything important was functioning, …
When “Nothing Is Wrong” Keeps You in the Wrong Life
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung
I was twenty-eight years old, standing in front of a mirror, reaching for my lipstick.
I couldn’t put it on.
I was engaged. A wedding was ahead of me. The invitations, expectations, and imagined future were already gathering momentum.
Nothing was visibly wrong.
That was the problem.
As I looked at my reflection, I could not find myself inside the life I was preparing to enter.
There had been no betrayal, no dramatic confrontation, and no single moment I could point to and say, “There. That …
The Year I Tried to Optimize My Way into Love
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron
I noticed it halfway through the conversation.
We were outside a café on a warm Saturday, close enough to the next table that I could hear someone laughing behind me. The person across from me was telling a story about getting lost on a hike, because they had been certain they could manage without a map, and they were laughing at themselves as they told it. I laughed in the right place.
Then my attention slid. Sense of humor, strong. Conversation, easy. …
Why Rest Should Be a Priority, Not a Reward
“In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.” ~Pico Iyer, from his TED talk “The Art of Stillness”
It was a Tuesday in late September, the kind of afternoon that feels borrowed from summer. I had a work deadline at 5:00. I went to the park anyway.
I spread a blanket on the grass, unpacked a little cheese and some fruit, and poured tea from the thermos I’d filled mostly out of habit. I had a book in my bag that I never opened.
For two hours, I sat outside in the middle …
