Hey everyone,
Two weeks ago, I finished an eight-month long freelancing project.
I was looking forward to this project coming to an end so that I’d have time again for books, for essays, for fiction, but I was ill-prepared, as I often am, for the feelings of anxiety that cropped up in the days after.
There is always a restlessness after something that’s been ongoing for a while comes to an end.
Even when you’ve been expecting it, and especially so when there’s a good sum of money involved, in this case our ongoing monthly expenses.
For me, this time, the end of this project coupled with a move back to India has opened up a whole range of questions:
Where to next? Who do I want to be? What work am I going to do now in the world?
I have wrapped up (I hope) the edits for my second novel. At some point, I’m going to be starting the next one. I already have the outline. The Freelance Writer’s Series of books is still incomplete, and there are four more titles to write and publish. I’m back in India now, so I could pick up the freelancing because this is my beat, these are my people, the stories of people I meet every day inspire me to tell them. Or I could do what I’ve always hesitated to do: Open up and tell my own stories, the essays that I write, leave incomplete on my computer, and almost never send out because they’re too raw, too personal, and still not wrapped in any kind of meaningful healing.
I could do all of it, I could do none of it.
Two weeks ago, I felt as though I’d come face-to-face with a decision to be made, an important decision.
And I’ve been here before. I’ve been here several times, in fact. I’m here every few years, asking the same questions, looking inward for different answers.
So, I’ve been meditating, which is something most people don’t know that I do pretty regularly. I’ve been practicing quieting my mind, sometimes for as much as 2-3 hours a day, trying to figure out what I want. If I took away the question of finances, the ego, the “what will people think?” and the pressure to succeed, what would I be doing?
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll already know the answer: I want to read books, write books, and travel.
How do I do that in the short term and still make money?
It came to me in a flash, the idea. Fully-formed, ready-to-go. (Don’t you love how people tell you that the idea came to them in a flash but never what came before it? For me, what came before it was days of full-blown anxiety and hours and hours of fidgety meditation that involved a whole lot of swearing. So now you know.)
And just like that, I have direction again. I know exactly what I need to do in the coming year, where my efforts are best focused.
Over time, as my vision solidifies, I will continue sharing where my ephipany seems to be leading me.
In the meantime, here’s what I want to say to you (and also myself):
None of this is permanent. You are allowed to switch direction, you are allowed to change your mind.
In fact, you SHOULD switch direction and change your mind as your career grows and you have better ideas about what you want to do and how you want to do it.
I have done so many things in my career that have led me through so many different parts of the industry. I’ve written articles and essays for publications like the New York Times and TIME, recorded audio and video, had a photograph published– my first– on the National Geographic website, created content and copy for businesses, told stories that would otherwise not have been told, reported on issues that created actual policy change, written and published books, signed with an agent, and of course, started this business that has helped thousands of other writers do the same.
And each time I have done any of those things, I have stood exactly where I am now, wondering if I was up to the task. Wondering if it was the right choice. Wondering what I was going to do next and what my work was meant to do in the world.
I’ve never had 100% certainty that the decisions I was making were the right ones, but I’ve jumped regardless. Because it is in the uncertainty that you live your life, and it is in the uncertainty that you figure out whether you really wanted what you said you did, and how badly you wanted it.
It is in this uncertainty that you find the truth.
I’m in the uncertainty now as I jump. Do I really want what I say I do? How badly do I want it?
I guess we won’t have to wait too long to find out.
Cheers,
Natasha