[2/21] To live for the hope of it all

Cancel plans just in case you’d call

Disclaimer:

A series of daily ‘stacks challenging consistent writing habits, influenced by Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages Exercise from The Artist’s Way. These pages are *meant* to be private - fear and loathing in your notes app vibes. However, I need accountability, so Substack is my resolve.

🎧 Today’s writing soundtrack:

Case in point:

I claim I want to be more consistent. By Day 2, I fumbled the bag.

The cosmos is within us.

But listen, I’m going to write two ‘stacks today, so what of it? Consistency is often glorified as the answer to the universe, but let me tell you a little something about the universe, a.k.a my special interest: It’s chaotic.

My childhood dreams of becoming an astrophysicist or astronomer were squashed by the heavy prevalence of maths in the curriculum and beyond. Dreamers can still dream. And every night when I look up at the black abyss of everything and nothingness (or go on a predictable YouTube science binge), I witness true magic.

In the moment, by whatever measure we assert time to be, everything is chaos. It’s violence. It’s pain. It’s breaking to create. Yet when observed over aeons, measures of time unfathomable to the human mind, all appears consistent as if by design. Cohesive. Thoughtful. Purposeful.

I’m not sure I believe in a “god”, but I believe in the universe (seems obvious, but there are genuinely people who don’t - a topic for a different time).

You, my friend, are the universe. I invite you to observe your current state of chaos, if you’re in one, from the lens of an astronomer looking forward yet backwards in this very moment, at this moment. The moment that is your life.

What’s your grand design? Cue Kevin McCloud…

We are made of star-stuff.

One of Studio Sonder’s incredible Creative Rebels (and an even more incredible friend of mine), ICF-Accredited ACC Coach Tom Jepson, set a Mini Mastermind Challenge a couple of weeks back. With good intentions, I was buzzed to join his email cohort and finally make sense of my chaos and resulting exhaustion.

But as each email stacked in my inbox, and the inevitable “I’ll do it all in one go” redirection turned into zero progress nearly two weeks later, I am once again a product of my failings. Tom would slap me for saying such things. But here goes, I’m doing the thing I said I would…

Day 1: What’s the problem?

My challenge: Everything. Everywhere. All at once.

✨By my design✨

Describe it: Fear that I’m running out of time. Fear that I’ll fall from the great height to which I have climbed to for survival. Never stopping, pausing to admire the view before hurtling towards the next peak. My incessant need to “prove” myself to an audience of zero.

Always looking over my shoulder in case my poor judgments from a previous timeline catch up with me in this one. Always feeling, for some reason, that I must be twice as good for half as much.

And then getting frustrated with myself when I don’t dare to ask for what I want.

All of this completes a never-ending cycle of self-doubt, overthinking, and overworking.

We are a way for the universe to know itself.

It’s not all doom and gloom, Milhouse.

I have never been happier. I’m the truest version of myself I’ve ever known. I am the most consistent and confident I have ever been. I am resilient. I trust myself. I am killing it.

But the candle that tries to burn twice as bright is destined to face twice as fast, and that is where my problem lies. I must slow down. Yet the thought still lingers in my mind:

Is it not better to burn than to fade away?

Part two, day two, is up next.

In the meantime, name your challenge/problem. Describe it in great detail like it’s a character in your story. Write in your journal, on your Substack, on your walls - wherever feels right right now. Get it out. Be chaotic.

A final thought from the great Carl Sagan:

"For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence."

— "Can We Know the Universe?" in M. Gardner (ed.), "The Sacred Beetle and Other Great Essays in Science" (Plume, 1986)

Keep taking messy action daily,

D x

P.S. Support Tom’s work here on Substack or visit his website/LinkedIn to learn more and book a call with him. You won’t be disappointed.

🪐 He is a gift from the universe.