When living the dream looks like a tracksuit and a warmed up fish pie from Tesco
On reframing the things that are hard
(Here’s a pretty picture for you. This is not what my life looks like this week).
This week has been a lot, deadlines piling up like books tossed onto the to-be-read pile, which has got so high you stick a plant on top and pretend it’s a side table. I know you know what I mean.
It’s always like this at this time of year, the relentless push before the winter slowing, and to some extent I understand my own logic of lining things up so everything is done by the end of November and I can spend December eating mince pies, crunching through country lanes on the lookout for robins, and planning all my Christmas presents in a cosy cafe by the sea as I watch the waves roll in. It’s a great plan in theory except for the reality that it makes October and November very hard work. And this year all I really want to do is write Substack essays. Anyone else???
This week I have been dealing with editor queries on what I thought was a finished manuscript, finalising my upcoming sale and doing a host of things other people need from me, not to mention making advent calendars and helping with homework and so on in the evenings. Oh I forgot, also recording and launching Season 3 of my podcast - which involves writing more words than my book manuscript (I am not kidding). Shall I tell you what it’s called? Promise not to laugh? The Calm Christmas Podcast. It’s not ironic, it’s my December strategy, bringing calm to my own rushed life as I endeavour to help others invite calm into their own. It’s like learning how to paint from a working artist instead of a history of art major. It’s real and comes direct from experience…
I digress. The real irony is, there is nothing on my to-do list that I did not choose to put there. When I think about a time years ago, when everything on my to do list was put there by someone else - a time when book manuscripts and podcast recordings and sales of courses that I made with my own brain and heart were only ideas hovering at the edges of my dreams, building up their courage to enter - I realise that things are so very different now. Having nothing on my to do list that I did not choose to put there is a privilege.
Us creatives who take the plunge to living on our terms, turning the wild ideas in our heads and hearts into things that are medicine in the world, face so many challenges every day.
“You do what for a living?”
“Yeah but how does that pay the mortgage?”
“Oh I could never bear the uncertainty, or the critics.”
“Did you see that negative review? Oh here, let me send you a link.”
“Did you see that other person doing basically the same as you but for half the price?”
“Hmm, that’s a nice idea but it’s a shame because it’ll never work. You need at least X many followers before you can even contemplate a book deal/launching something new etc etc.”
And so on.
I know you know this too, and that deep down, like me, you know most of it is born from jealousy in the minds of people who have a secret creative dream, perhaps not a million miles from the one you are living, but haven’t yet taken the leap. And yet it can be a lot on top of all the platforms we have to learn and the things we have to do to get our creations out in the world to the people we built them for.
But here’s the thing. Just at the most stressful moment I have experienced lately, my phone pinged and it was a message from someone who has known me a long time. I scrolled back up through my Whatsapp chat with her, and saw a note she sent me back in September when I was deep in my manuscript and unsure if I’d make the deadline. I was staying in a rented house working fifteen hours a day.
How’s it going? she asked.
I was honest.
Don’t forget, you’re living the dream, she said.
You are right, I replied. Thank you for the reminder. I guess I just didn’t expect ‘the dream’ to look like me sitting around in a tracksuit eating heated up fish pie from Tesco, with an alarm on my phone reminding me to shower…
(IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m not normally like this, just near a book deadline, honest. Also, I have nothing against tracksuits and fish pie from Tesco. It’s just that I thought the creative life would look like me in an artist’s apron floating around a lofty white studio even though I write instead of painting, which shows how little I knew about the reality).
It was a good reminder.
The only version of ‘living the dream’ that matters is ‘living your dream’.
And sometimes our hard work and courage and luck all comes together to make that dream something we are actually doing day to day, but it doesn’t quite look like what we imagined it to. Not bad, just different. And when that sometimes looks like a long to-do list, we would do well to remember that there was a time when this kind of work was the dream, our dream. It’s a good problem to have.
Of course it’s also good to cancel a few things and go for a walk when it all gets too much, but fundamentally it’s a moment for congratulation not self-bashing.
You chose this. You made it happen. If you can do that you can do anything, including to decide what to cross off that long list.
It not ‘the dream’ but ‘your dream’ that matters. And if that looks like a tracksuit and microwaved fish pie, then so be it.
Tell me, what has been stressful for you this week but is actually only a thing that you only have to deal because you are living something that you only dared dream of years ago?
Beth Xx
PS My new book KOKORO: Japanese wisdom for a life well lived will be out on April 4. If you pre-order your copy you can get free access to a beautiful seasonal writing sanctuary with me, called Spring Light. All the details are here.
I am sitting here, after putting the kids to bed trying to get the energy to do yet another part of my essay. The move from a corporate life to that of a student and mother has come at a loss of lots of things, money, career, status……all those things that in my heart I know matter so little but sometimes amidst the struggle feel important. I remember however how blessed I am to be able to change my life and move towards a direction which gives me fulfilment and allows me to help others and it is that which keeps me going through another assignment
Dear Beth,
Thank you for sharing this with us! I’ve been struggling to recover from a massive burnout these past two years. It has had everything to do with not being able to make or live by my own ‘to do list’ as you say.
Years and years of parenting my parents....feeling responsible and guilty. Raising three (wonderful) kids mostly by myself and trying not to let everything the world around me had to say about me push me off my path. In the end, I didn’t get pushed. I just broke - all by myself and saw no more purpose to my life. Too much had happened and I saw no way to overcome it all.... but thanks to your books, writings and many, many sparks and prompts I’ve slowly pulled myself back up with every word that’s found it’s refuge on my screen or in my journal. I would like to use this opportunity to THANK YOU ❤️ for helping me get through the most difficult journey of my life! You have no idea what an important difference you make to so many of our lives. 🙏
Much love, Michele