Find What You Love And Let It Kill You
You need to find your thing. And you’re saying this after having found yours. You were fairly sure that writing was your thing once, but you don’t even know anymore.
Writing has been generous to you. What started out as an outlet to vent your frustrations eventually turned into a profession. And because of writing alone, you’ve travelled all across the world, stayed in some of the fanciest hotels, and you’ve met interesting people you wouldn’t have otherwise.
But you keep recalling Bukowski’s quote about finding what you love and letting it kill you, and more and more, you’re realising you don’t have anything in your life that could do that quote justice.
You’re a collector of hobbies, so it’s not like you haven’t tried. You’ve climbed rocks, fought in the ring, and even learned sleight of hand, but nothing seems to have stuck. None of these hobbies give you the blind faith that the starving artists seem to have.
You’re totally fine with walking down a path with no guarantees. You just wish you had the desire to even begin walking in the first place.
So you wrest yourself away from expectations. You don’t have to let something kill you. We’re all dying, anyway.
What does that leave you with? Not much. Fortunately, your options include the ability to focus on what’s in front of you. So you pull yourself back to the present when you’re changing your kids’ diapers, writing that pesky email, or finally cleaning out your stationery cabinet, which you’d planned to do since the pandemic.
You might have very real problems waiting for you at the next turn. Your creditors could show up at month’s end, or your health screening results might come back with a couple more markers you didn’t ask for.
But you’re okay right now, and that’s the only thing that should matter, shouldn’t it? In this very moment, you can still breathe. In this very moment, you don’t suffer from chronic pain. You have the same amount of friends and enemies you’ve had since yesterday, so there’s no need to theorycraft on what may or may not happen. You will cross those bridges when you get there.
At the very least, you can spend three minutes changing diapers to the best of your ability. Surely, you could afford yourself that? Maybe spend two minutes typing just one shitty sentence, and enjoy yourself no matter the outcome. Or, you could spend one minute just being grateful.
You have the rest of the day to suffer (and that’s mostly in your mind, mind you). So you might as well choose to luxuriate right now.
Maybe then you’ll discover what truly matters. And maybe then, you won’t worry so much about finding your thing.