August 1 Daily Entry -- The Confidence of a Nine-Year-Old

I have struggled the past few years from lack of narrative. Since leaving my last job, I have felt worthless, purposeless, and out of place. This is because we use jobs to define who we are.

For a decade I gave my whole self over to some form of career identity. In law school and as a lawyer I worked toward being an attorney. Then I became a trainer. Then a teacher. Each time the new career taking over my identity.

I lost who I truly was. I emerged from my last job completely spent. Burnt out. Carved up. Like the giving tree, I had given everything my employers--who cast themselves as family--had asked for, and I was left a stump.

I believed at the time I had no passions or interests. I had many health issues to sort through, was more or less unable to work--at least not full time--and so I believed I had no value.

I still bought into the lie that to have value I had to be productive. I had to have some single mission in life that I hurled myself toward. And so I attempted various part-time jobs, gig-work, and freelancing.

I dreaded the moment when someone asked what I did. It filled me with shame. I knew they were trying to figure me out in a single question, but I had no answer for them. I couldn't tell them who I was because I didn't know.

I didn't do any of the things I did full time, and none of them made much money. Not enough to live on. I was fortunate in that having had an extremely high-paying job, having paid off loans, having married another highly-paid professional, having bought and sold houses, having saved, having invested, I was financially secure. I didn't have to worry about money. I had to think about it. I couldn't spend thoughtlessly. And we all know that one turn of bad luck can change your fortune, so I thought often what I could do for money should disaster strike. But my health and food and shelter were all secure enough.

But I still had no purpose. I heard people give advice to others: "take a year off, pursue your passions, see what happens." But I had no passions. My careers had robbed me of passions and interests along with my physical and mental health. I felt so invalid as a human being because I had no driving purpose. There was no reason to my life.

It took more than a year. In fact, it took almost five years, but I believe it would have been quicker if I hadn't entertained the remnants of capitalism while I healed my wounds and cultivated an authentic self within me.

For years I was still trying to do unemployment as a job. "How can I make money?" I asked on a loop. "How can I help people? How can I be useful? How can I be productive? How can I labor?"

The idea that I didn't need to labor was too much to accept. And so I created labor. I created hardship. I created worries.

I still sought to tell people what I was in one or two words. What I wanted to do with my time was play. Play violin, learn Spanish, take photos, paint, sit in nature, meditate, walk, read stories and tell them back.

But none of these things were jobs. At least they weren't for me, because I wasn't good enough at them to let them define me. I started them too late in life, the first half of my life having been focused on finding and pursuing a career.

I hesitated to tell people "I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a musician." Because my skills didn't live up to the label. But those were the things I wanted to pursue.

For a while I thought I needed to pick one and become good at it. I needed to work behind the scenes and polish myself into an artist so that when I debuted, I would fit the image.

And now I see that is untrue. You become who you are by being it.

A few months ago I declared myself feral. When people asked what I did, I stopped giving a straight answer. "A lot of things" I started replying. "Unemployed. Retired. I do what I want."

I stopped feeling shame about it. I gave of myself to capitalism. I gave in heaps. I plundered my body and mind and gave everything I had to the great machine of capitalism and the puritan's aversion to idle hands. It was permissible for me to rest. To be aimless.

It was uncomfortable to be without purpose. It felt illicit to just do what I want, with no end goal. But I found that having an end goal ruined the process and cheapened the product. As soon as I started doing things for money, my projects became stifled. I changed what I was doing to try to make it seem like an official product, and fears arose that I would be identified as an unofficial person doing things they were bad at to try to be something.

At first I focused intently on whether I was good at what I was doing. But finally I let go of all that. And I started doing things with no purpose, just because those things felt good.

It started with coffee. I loved drinking coffee every morning, so I started to drink it outside at the park, to feel pleasure and get myself out of the house.

As it turned out, I also loved the park. It made me feel happy and content just to be there, and so I began to spend more and more time there, just sitting. At this point, there was no goal. There was no possible or contemplated productive end. I was just sitting, drinking coffee for hours because it brought me joy.

Then I began to take pictures while I was there. I explored the idea of communicating a emotions without words.

I began to read books while I was there, and I thought a lot about my world. I thought about meaning and connection. I thought about the power of the mind and the power of the collective.

I began to meditate. To observe. To journal.

And slowly it became part of me. These were things I liked to do. They gave me joy. This is what I would dedicate my time to. This has value.

And I realized I am allowed to do these things, even if I am not good at them. First, you don't become good at something and then do it. You become good at something by doing it. As they say, showing up is half the battle. I needed to stop holding myself back from doing things because I didn't have the talent to be commercially successful, and I needed to start doing the things that brought me joy. It was okay for me to be a bad artist, a beginner musician, an unpublished writer. If the things brought me joy, I needed to do them.

Second, I question the idea that we need to be good at something in order to do it. Even as adults. We all have a different perspective on the world, and sometimes an inartfully expressed spark of creativity is exactly what is needed or welcomed at a moment in time.

And who decides when you are good enough, anyway? If we all waited to do things until we were perfect, we'd all still be waiting.

So now, who am I? I don't know, but I can tell you some things I do. I write. I make art. I play music. I wash clothes. I see friends. I learn language. I read. I think. I meditate. I listen.

I am not good at these things, but I enjoy them. And so I will do them every day, regardless of my skill that day, and see what emerges from my time spent doing what interests me.

I will not hesitate or hold back from things because I'm not a master. Instead, I will do them with the confidence of a nine-year-old who has discovered the joy of acting and puts on a play for their family. If it makes me happy I will do it, I will share it, and I will watch it evolve. Maybe it will turn into something great. Maybe all it will ever do is make me a happy, stable person. That's okay. We need those.

"Don't worry so much about the opinions of others" suddenly makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't matter if other people deem me important or valid or good. I am the one who lives in my life, and I am in charge of my happiness. There is no reason not to enjoy my life when I have the chance.

Suffering does not make one a better person. In fact, I believe it does the opposite. It distracts us, applies pressure, makes us selfish and grumpy.

I am no less important than you because I don't wake up at 6, drag myself through workout, hair and makeup, squeeze myself into an uncomfortable suit, and sit behind a bulky desk listening to people string together meaningless words, all in the name of profits.

I have a good life. I enjoy my life. I get to do what I want, even if what I want never makes any money for anyone. Even if what I want is a fool's dream. It doesn't make me better or worse than you, but it makes me happier. And it gives me the emotional resources to be a good spouse and friend.

I don't know what any of it will turn into, but I don't have to know. And if at the end of my life, all I ever was is an unpublished writer, a bad artist, and a beginner musician, the so be it. I will have brought joy into the world by nourishing my own soul in such a way that I had the resources to be kind to others in word and deed.