Hustling to Exist

Life is so beautiful and painful and interesting. If you really pay attention, there are lessons that come to us at the exact times we need them.

Over the last week, I have been able to feel myself operating in a way that I can only describe as “over-functioning.” Over thinking things, over working things, my mind and action verbs in overdrive.

And then a friend shared a clip she found on Viola Davis’s Instagram. There is a man talking about Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. Christopher Robin was sad telling his toy friends he won’t be able to play with them as much because he’s going to school. The man goes on to explain that his only regret in life is working too much. He wishes he would have simply taken more time to enjoy, but he always felt like he had to be working. He explains that so many of us feel like we have to hustle to exist.

That concept of hustling to exist gave me great pause. As someone with a high number of Adverse Childhood Experiences, my stress response is to look outward instead of inward. So, when things get hard, I’m looking around for signals. Signals of what danger awaits. Signals of whether I’m doing enough. Whether I’m doing well enough. Signals of whether I’m safe. As I mention in Legacy of Learning, I’m an enneagram 3, the achiever. And many of us 3’s believe we need to win love. We have a deep seeded belief that we are unlovable, so we need to get out there and earn love.

And man, that is really hard to manage when you are new to both a role and an organization. But that doesn’t meant it’s not possible. I’m spending a long weekend at the beach with friends. We’ve been laughing and talking and leisurely enjoying. We’ve realized that we are terrible at explaining what each of us does for a living. And we decided we are good with that. Because what we do isn’t what matters. Who we are is what really matters. And as we encounter more and more life experiences, who we are continues to grow and evolve, and we have fun meeting new versions of ourselves and each other.

I just think that is so beautiful. The safety of true connection isn’t in the predictability of others but rather in genuine curiosity and interest in meeting many versions of a person and choosing to say, “I am excited to uncover every person you are and will become in this lifetime.”

I watched Inside Out 2 on the plane, and there is a quote from the movie that made me emotional. For a “kids film,” they sure did nail the human experience for all of us.

“Maybe that’s what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.”

That IS what happens.

But I want better for all of us. I recently saw a post that explained how learning something new can take up to 400 repetitions. Unless you are playing. Then it can take only 20.

What happened to us? Somewhere along the way, other voices influence us and our sense of joy and play and peace perhaps.

But I would love for us to find our way back together. Lovingly bringing ourselves closer to joy, enjoyment, and play. And I don’t exactly know how but as Peter Block recently said in so many words, “When we are unsure, the answer is almost always community.”

I wonder what it would look like to build community around play, enjoyment, joy, and sense that we simply exist at the same time in the world and that is nothing short of a miraculous.

I want to care about what matters most and release the weight of everything which is not that.