Forgive me, personal standards of perfection, for I have sinned: I have not made as much time for my creative projects as I had promised to myself in December of last year. Despite finding the perfect color palette for my Google Calendar and planning out my days in my bullet journal, I’ve chosen over and over again not to write that much, limiting my paper and digital trail of ideas and hot takes. I think it’s mostly because of how being in school again has satiated this urge. I’m fairly certain that I have written at least a thousands words for my academic requirements since the semester began, the result of a carefully thought out decision that I made: I wanted to burdened by one more class, just so that I know either how much I am capable of or what my limit really is, since the voices in my head sound less credible now.
One of my biggest goals this year was to start taking my writing more seriously, like working on that book of essays I’ve always wanted to one day publish, or finally bringing those video essay drafts to life. I also promised myself to write more often on Substack, hoping to post at least twice a month, but that still hasn’t happened. I keep telling myself it’s because I have overestimated my ability to commit, that I once again miscalculated just how much free time I would have left at this point in time, but I know that to an extent, this is just being avoidant. I have been scared and doubtful, and I have felt like some of these personal projects are not worth the trouble, because I keep getting overwhelmed by the number of new things that I have to learn just so that I could make more things happen. There’s also an amount of shame in remembering how much time has passed since you last committed to these hobbies, how much dust these things have collected since you last made that promise to concretize this restless energy. And I’ve set aside these feelings out of sheer pride, not wanting to give my vulnerability a name and speaking it into power. I feel that there’s some finality to it, and I don’t enjoy how it makes me feel about myself.
But it seems that there is no other way than to lean into the discomfort and see where it takes me. There is a story I keep telling myself where I still am foolish enough to believe that there is nothing I can do about how it ends, but I should know by now that I am not special enough to be doomed my whole life. There is no cage, no leash, no limit to my movement—just a little voice in my head that speaks too loud sometimes. I forget that I can still change how this story goes by trusting myself a bit more, a skill that I can only hone by choosing to do something differently each day.
wow thank you for this dani! i feel less alone now.
Know that you are not alone, Dani🫂