"You get what you need" 🎵🎵🎵

Do any of you have things that you’ve been meaning to get around to?

For a long time, writing was that for me. I was convinced—deep down in the core of my being—that my life would feel incomplete, that I would die with regrets if I didn’t ever give this writing thing a go.

At the time, I thought it was about my ambition.

I thought that if I wrote consistently, I’d gain prestige and renown and buckets of moolah.

I thought that the kinds of doors that opened for Glennon Doyle would open for me.

And I was wrong.

Because once I actually created the space in my life for this thing I cherish, this thing that lights me up oh-so-very much…

I realized that I’m in the camp of writers who enjoy writing, not the camp of writers who enjoy having written.

And what that means is that the actual act of writing, of sitting down regularly and doing the darn thing—

It’s enough for me. I could do this for the rest of my life—write to an audience of 100 or so friends—and be completely satisfied.

Do you know how much better my life has gotten since I started regularly publishing musings? It’s impossible to quantify.

But it hasn’t gotten better because I’ve become rich or famous or in-demand or popular.

It’s gotten better because a small group of people really know me. Really see me. And—lucky me—a few of them even cherish me.

Do you know how powerful it is to be really seen? Deeply known? Truly cherished? For who you are?! Not your masked performative self, but your real, true, “this is my essence” self?

It’s—whoa.

And what I’ve learned in the two years I’ve consistently published is that it’s unlikely that my writing will ever have broad appeal. Not because I’m incapable of researching in-demand topics and sweating out relatable, charming stories that might get a bunch of shares…

But because I don’t want to.

I love writing the way I write.

I don’t love editing. If you have exclusively read my musings, you have never read an edited piece of writing from me. You have only read thoughts, ideas, and sentiments that have poured out of my fingers when I sat down at my computer, tapped into a flow state, and then immediately hit publish.

And do you know what’s funny? I thought this was going to be a musing that wasn’t focused on me. That I’d share how the thing I always meant to get around to was writing. How the thing a friend who struggles with depression always meant to get around to was ketamine treatments. How your thing might be…

Then tie it into how our urges—our desires, our wants, our knowings—how important they are.

Not because pursuing them promises a specific result. But because if there’s something you really, really want, something that feels imperative to pursue…

Then there’s something in that knowing that’s worth trusting.

And it might not be the reward you’re expecting. But it could be something even better.

Love,

Your friend who thinks that hobbies might be the secret to life

Morning Musings is a delight-first writing practice where I wake up, put my fingers on the keyboard and see if any ideas want to play. The delightful humans who read these musings tend to see them as an invitation to slow down, have a virtual cup of coffee together, and contemplate the human experience. If you’d like to join our tribe, subscribe here: https://keelyc.substack.com/