For all those go-getters who’ve gotten a little tired. This is for you. Pinky promise.
We all chase things. Only we don’t like to call it a chase.
Go-getting sounds better, doesn’t it? Hustle sounds about right. Like the word of the year as well as the last two.
Because if Beyonce can do it, if she has the same amount of hours in the day, you can too.
Yes, Beyonce has the same amount of hours in the day, but my bets are that she has a personal chef and a trainer and a driver and nanny and any other form of help she may want or need.
I admit, I never bought that mug or that idea, but I do subscribe to the squares on Instagram. I even create these squares that don’t give you the full picture about me, about my life (no matter how authenticate I try to be). And although I know how to crop and filter, I, probably like you, can’t always edit out who the squares are telling me to be, what they are telling me to buy, how they are telling me live.
But as I’m reading in Erin Loechner’s new book Chasing Slow, “We are doing ourselves no favors when we look to the crowd to tell us who we are.”
I’m reading a lot of words, a lot of wisdom, in Chasing Slow that is resonating with me. I’m always amazed at how we can find ourselves in someone else’s story. Aren’t you? How lives can be so different and so same-same.
What I’m concluding after this great read is that we are chasers. You might chase things. I chase security. You might not want to call it a chase. I just might not want to label what I “seek” as a thing. But what we lack, what we hunger for (things, success, love, approval) is probably what we are chasing (working for) whether we are aware of it or not.
This book has been a mirror, reflecting my disillusioned need for order and control and pointing me, again, to surrender. Always surrender. Feeling out of control is exhausting, but chasing order is even more exhausting.
In my copy of the book, I underlined Erin’s words . . .
“I used to think the opposite of control is chaos. But it’s not. The opposite of control is surrender. Surrendering control is, of course, the easy part. Surrendering expectation is more muddied.”
See.
I’m seeing the need to slow it down. Slow it all down. My expectations, my hurry, my “I don’t hustle,” hustle, even the time I spend scrolling through the squares.
I wonder if you might be seeing the need to slow down too?
If you are, if you just happen to be the go-getter who has gotten a little tired, this is book is for you.
Pinky promise.
Images via Erin Loechner