I spent last week on a boat in the English countryside. It was beautiful. It was quiet. It was peaceful. I read six books in six days and brought home at least a dozen more.
The holiday was meant to be a way for us to relax, to chill out, to disconnect from the work, the busyness, the full-on nature of how I like to do things and, for a while anyway, just take a break.
I tried doing that. I forced relaxation on myself.
Then we got home after a week of nothingness and I stayed up until 3am for two days in a row and wrote like a crazy person.
Finally, for the first time in a week, I felt truly relaxed. Because here’s the thing: I don’t need to be in the middle of nowhere and do nothing to feel happy. In fact, quite the opposite. Doing nothing is stressful to me. Writing, even if it’s writing that I will throw away and never use in any professional sense, is what destresses me. I journal every day without fail. And I write, as much as I can whenever I can.
Writing is what I do, it is who I am. Disconnecting from it, I have learned, is not the way to let go of my stress. Others may choose to call it work. For me, it is just a part of my everyday life.
This, apparently, is not normal. “Normal” in our culture is working fifty weeks a year so you can be given two weeks of holiday to escape from the drudgery of it. I love my work, my writing. I would– and indeed, do– engage in it for eight to ten hours a day, often having to force myself to stop. I don’t need to escape from it. I find every opportunity I can to INDULGE in it. My work, to me, is not something I do for money alone. It is something I do because there is nothing else I’d rather be doing.
This is difficult for most people to understand. In the world we live in, wanting to work, not wanting to take time off from it is seen as abnormal, strange. If you work that much, you must be a workaholic and something must be wrong with you or your life. No one can actually be happy living like that, surely.
It’s the same with ambition. I have no qualms about declaring loudly and openly that I aspire to be a New York Times bestselling author, that I’d like to win the Booker some day, that I fully expect to be a millionaire. It rubs people the wrong way, this kind of ambition, so unapologetically uttered by a writer, a female writer. They try to shut me down quickly by saying things such as “You’re setting yourself up for disappointment” or “Be grateful that you even have work in this economy” or, my favorite, “Is your husband okay with this?”
It is completely acceptable in our society to say that you fear being broke, ending up on the street, and not having enough to feed your kids. Everyone understands that. But go the opposite way, say that you dream of being successful and people will tell you to tone down your expectations. Very few people understand, or accept, that kind of mindset. It is okay to fear failure. It is not okay to dream of success.
You may be ambitious or you may not. You may write for many hours a day or you may not. You may be published or you may not.
However, just based on the fact that you’re here, reading this, that you identify as a writer, I can tell you one thing with complete certainty: You are not normal. You never were.
Maybe you haven’t recognized this about yourself yet, but let me tell you, by virtue of being a writer you have already opted out. You want more. You dream of a life that most would call impractical. You spend your free time creating, not consuming. You dare to believe that life can be different. Your life IS different.
You are not normal.
So why do you keep acting like you are?
Why do you listen when people tell you that your dream is unrealistic?
Why do you care that you’ve worked ten hours every day for the last six weeks with no break when in fact, writing IS your break?
Why do you feel defeated and demoralized when your friend is able to own a home or take a foreign holiday even though you know he’s working a twelve hours a day in a corporate job that kills him while you get to devote yourself to work that you love?
Why do you compare yourself to people with traditional jobs? Why do you allow your dreams to be toned down by the “realistic” expectations of others? Why do you not dare to dream big and own your ambitions? Why do you not allow yourself to believe that you can have your art and your money? Why do you allow other people’s limitations to become your own?
Why do you measure your success by the standards of the world?
Why do you constantly apologize for who you are?
You are a creator and a dreamer. A rule breaker.
You don’t follow rules, you make them. So make them.
Create the framework for your life and then live it. Your way. Unapologetically.
You are a writer. You are unique. You are exceptional.
Believe it. Know it. And for your own sake, start acting like it.