I would love to write best-selling books. I would love to sell my paintings on Etsy, find internet fame via a fun podcast, and create a series of photography workshops that sell out as soon as they are listed, but this may never happen for me, and I know it’s because I never even really try to make any of those things happen. I sometimes toy with the idea of starting this or doing that, especially when I see others successfully doing it and knowing I have a unique twist that would fit a great niche, but past daydreaming about it, I just never start.
I haven’t opened an Etsy shop for my art, I never googled how to start a podcast, I don’t sit and create lessons for something I could teach online. And for some reason, I used to feel guilty about this. For a long time, I felt guilty about not hustling for more when I see people around me making things happen- things that I could be doing if I sat with a pad and pen and started planning and doing. Everything I ever did started with a pad of paper and pen in hand, coffee nearby, and me creating lists. Amazing things happened, whatever the goal. These days, however…
These days I make lists about books I want to read aloud, activities I’d love to do with the boys, recipes I think we’d have fun making together, and trips I want to go on with my family before the boys go off to college. I make lists of restaurants I’d love to try out, improvements I’d like to make to our home, and audiobooks I want to pick up to enjoy on my carpool days. I don’t really want to make lists of new ways to make money or start a successful side hustle or anything that would take the focus of my mind and heart off of my young family, and for some reason I found I used feel so, so badly about that. I felt like I was letting myself down, my family down, my future-retired-self-that-wants-to-have-lots-of-money down, and my past-self-that-worked-four-jobs-and-still-maintained-a-3.4-GPA-to-keep-her-scholarship down. Would she be ok with her future self NOT wanting to live a high energy, fast-paced lifestyle in a lucrative career? What did she do all that cramming and hard work for?
I don’t know why I felt badly about it, but I didn’t want to, and today I read this amazing post that made me realize I didn’t have to feel guilty for wanting things to be simpler so I can just enjoy each moment. I’m ok with not being a very rich mompreneur with an online store or multi-employee at-home business. I’m ok with not becoming famous as a novelist or anything else, and opting instead for relaxed mornings with my coffee, planning ski trips, and rereading Pride and Prejudice when I have a free moment. I’m ok with it all, because I want a simpler life, and to engage in each day without the tinge of urgency. I want to enjoy every moment and not feel as though I’m always in a race, following a timeline, and if I don’t rush, I lose. I’m not in a competition, and I don’t want to be in a competition. Most importantly, I want to not feel bad that I feel good about the simplicity and lack of hurry in my life. The idea of a slow, deliberate, faith-filled life makes me feel good ♥︎ and I want to be as happy about feeling that way as I am about living that way.