The Hustle is Voluntary (and how to opt out)
“Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast.” ~ Jeff Olson
Time is a funny thing. I often feel pushed by the frenetic pace and that seems to have become the new normal for us, and the way we seem to have taken the movie title “Everything Everywhere All At Once” as what we’re supposed to actually be. Being overly busy has become a weird status symbol. Coffee dates need to be penciled in a month or two in advance and still usually get rescheduled at least once. The pandemic gave a lot of us enough of a pause to realize that we didn’t want to be so busy, but then the world whipped back up into frenzy and so did we. Nobody seems to like it, but it’s hard to opt out. Space needs to be made.
Cabo da Roca, Portugal.
I made space earlier this month, in the form of my first real vacation, aka not a work or family trip, in almost ten years. (This is a bit embarrassing as a therapist to admit by the way, but therapists are humans too, and we have blind spots and -isms just like everyone else.) I went to Portugal on a somewhat impromptu 6-day vacation, which might have been informed by recently reading two excellent books by Catherine Price: The Power of Fun and How to Break Up With Your Phone. (Yes, I am someone who, when told recently that I need to have more fun, decided to read a book about how to do that. Don’t @ me.)
I spent 6 lovely days in a foreign country without enough advance time to do all of the normal preparations I do, like memorize whole phrasebooks and make detailed daily itineraries. Thanks to my recent reading list I turned off all unnecessary notifications on my phone (the only device I brought), deleted all social media apps including the New York Times and Washington Post after realizing, while I’m renegotiating my relationship with my phone, that I treat those apps just like any other social media app, sent all of my political newsletters straight to the trash, and refused to listen to podcasts or even music in headphones — something I do in order to block out the noise of New York City and to which I have become somewhat addicted. I looked up and around, leaned into the adventure, let myself be bored, let my inner space become…empty.
This emptiness provided clarity: the hustle is voluntary. Do I want to keep living it?
I have a complicated relationship with being a therapist: I appreciate the work and love witnessing my clients as they heal + grow, and, I balk at the caseload, the increasing invasiveness of insurance companies as they tighten their pursestrings on mental health services, and the gatekeeping, hierarchical, private/secret/isolating structure that is inherent in traditional therapy and a traditional therapist/client relationship.
For the past few years I’ve juggled therapy work with performing work, and while it’s been incredible to be able to do both, it has also been a time of overwork and hustle. My vacation in Portugal distilled in me a deep desire to slow down, put roots down in a different way, and be more intentional with the balancing of activity and rest, movement and stillness, hustle and flow in my life.
Last year I finished the first draft of my first book, which currently carries the same title as this newsletter: Tending the Soul. I had intended to spend 2024 revising and polishing it, but got caught up in the tornado (too much work I love is still too much work) and month after month I couldn’t find my footing. In Portugal I got clear direction that it’s time to get the book out into the world — not just this one, in fact, but two more that are coming down the pike as well. In addition to the books there are essays and poems, even a screenplay, two stage plays, and a TV pilot gathering digital dust in a folder in my laptop that want attention.
When you let it get quiet in your head, the Still, Small Voice can be heard. This time around she had a sweet Portguese accent and said, Querida, it’s time to let writing come first and foremost. That includes my newsletter, which this year has been a victim of the tornado as well. No more! I’ll be writing more regularly here, to build a community of depth around the work that is emerging. Sometime soon I’ll also be establishing an option for becoming a paid subscriber. The newsletter will always remain free, but paid subscribers will get access to some pretty special extras that I’m excited about. I’ll share more in the coming weeks about that. (If you’re not yet subscribed, please click here and join my community.)
And I’m going to keep making space. The apps have stayed off my phone since I returned stateside. The other day I noticed that I was eating, reading, and listening to music all at the same time. Too much input! I turned off the music, closed my book, and let myself be fully with my meal. I’m making space for writing five days a week, for listening to the Still, Small Voice. Meditation helps. Journaling helps. Gazing out the window with my favorite of mug of coffee — I used to think it was wasted time, but behold, it helps. “Il dolce far niente” — “the sweetness of doing nothing” — is actually doing something profound.
Share with me what this post has brought up for you. How do you make inner space? What’s your relationship with busyness and the tornado? Is there something wanting to shift, slow, digest in you? I’d love to hear from you.