Points of failure: On being content (But not done)

After years of soul-searching, this past month I gained clarity into what I want to prioritize for the next decade:

It’s writing.

I quickly got to work re-organizing my calendar, doubling my daily writing time, and booking sessions with my coach. But maybe even more important, I also decided how to go about it.

“I’m gonna write, but I’m also gonna be happy now.” I journaled.

It sounds simple, but it’s complicated for me. I carry a lot of artistic baggage. I’ve played in bands for well over half my life. My whole identity was tied almost solely to that. When COVID hit, the hundred plus shows I’d been playing every year for a decade went to shit, and with them, so did my sense of self.

I fell into a void.

My response was to do more. More recordings, more videos, more of anything that could help fill the stage-shaped hole I felt. When shows returned, I then went into overdrive, trying to overcompensate for lost time.

The result: burnout.

After taking a year off, what I saw was a disheartening pattern throughout my musical journey: I had failed at allowing myself to be happy.

Throughout the years of recording and performing I had looked at contentment with contempt. Relaxing meant giving up. And how could I relax when there were clearly more rungs to climb?

With writing I have been intentional about doing the opposite: not taking myself too seriously, not rushing things, and not making it my whole identity.

The result: I’ve fallen in love with the process.

Last week I went to the bank to address a fraud case I’ve been dealing with since last April.

“Oh, hey Paul” the banker greeted me. I recognized her too, she opened my account when I first moved to Chicago thirteen years ago. We caught up and she told me it was her 30th anniversary at the bank, that she'd just gotten her weekends back since the now branch closes on Saturdays, and that she has a six-week sabbatical coming up.

She seemed at peace.

I asked her what keeps her coming in after that long. She held up a year’s worth of my bank statements, color-coded and annotated. “I love helping people and besides, where else can you find this level of stability nowadays.”

When I asked her if she had plans to retire, she laughed and told me no, that she was eyeing a promotion:

“Oh, I’m content,” she said, “but I’m not done.”

Her words stuck with me, I found myself wanting to relate, not to her path but to the balance she’d struck.

This month I received half a dozen new rejections for my stories from literary magazines. I have a stack of about fifty declines hanging on my wall. It keeps growing, and I'm excited by each one. They mean the art exists. That I did my part.

I am happy about that. I'm satisfied. It doesn't mean I'm done.

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