I spent most of my life in New York as broke ass kid trying to survive the city. I didn’t survive or make it because my parents sent me tons of money and made sure their family friends hooked me up with jobs. I survived because I sat in miserable offices in Cleveland, set up awkward informational interviews to learn how to put a resume together, and then got hired and subsequently spent a couple years threatening to get fired.
I don’t think I am where I am in my life because things worked out for me. In fact I would argue the opposite, nothing worked out for me. There was one point where I left an office job emotionally and mentally annihilated and spent a couple months painting apartments for money because I was too traumatized to sit behind a desk again. It’s not fun to rely on a low paying job for an aggressively priced New York apartment. There’s not a lot left over for groceries and the credit card debt can easily pile up.
In all of this though, I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted for myself. My reality though, was dumpster fire in comparison to the pristine outcome I yearned for. It took a lot of persistence, therapy, Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, Oprah talking about life, a lot of Oprah in general, with a side of weed, to find the inner strength to believe in more for myself. It took a shitty relationship with a guy that wasn’t half bad who told me that I was smarter and more capable than I thought I was, to help me get back out into the world and try to make things happen for myself again.
I can’t say it’s been up and up since that point. There are always bumps in the road, and there will continue to be bumps in the road. I am thankful though for how things have played out. I’ve gently aligned a lot of things in my life and the chaos has significantly subsided.
We live in a culture that talks about manifestation and vision boards and dreams. Manifestation is nice, right? Just wake up in the morning, stare at your vision board, connect to the energy of what it is you want, and some how it will appear. So simple. If manifestation does not work, it’s the universe deciding not to reward you, affirming that you are less deserving than others.
This is wildly untrue. Manifestation isn’t easy, like ordering something off Amazon. Manifestation is a pregnancy that can last years, a labor that can be grueling, bloody, and split us open from within in the process. Manifestation is about grit, it’s about keeping our soft idealism and dreams protected and alive, while navigating a cold, ruthless, and unforgiving world. Manifestation is getting your teeth kicked in over and over again, and choosing to get up because you don’t want your current reality to be the final outcome of your life.
Expect less and you will accept less. I am such a sucker for idealism and dreams. Maybe it’s my Venus in Pisces. It takes a lot of doggedness and persistence to pursue a reality that feels out of reach. It takes a lot of doggedness and persistence to create a reality that aligns with our vision, especially when our reality is suffocating, encouraging us to narrow the scope of our expectations.
When I say expect less and you will accept less, what I mean is don’t let reality, your current hinderances, or past experiences define the possibility of what the future can be for you. Set a parameter of what you dream of, be bold, and try to pursue creating it. You’re going to get kicked in the teeth, you’re going to get dragged to hell and back a few times. In the pursuit of what it is you want, you’ll grow and change in small ways, and those incremental changes will start to pile up and eventually overtake the chaos, elevating your life to a new level.
How does this connect to love? Love requires a lot of soft gentle idealism. Online dating and relationships are often times cold, brutal, and unforgiving realities to navigate. To say “women are fucked” “men are fucked” “dating is fucked” lowers our expectations of what love can be. So when a half competent person comes along we’re ecstatic because they’re defying our already low expectations, and we invariably collapse a part of our lives for them because we believe that that is all life will feed us.
If you want anything in life, try to challenge yourself to dream a little bigger, bleed a little more, and fight a little harder. Say no more often. Challenge yourself to be better than what your life is right now, work to align yourself with what it is you want. Work more, and then work some more again. Pour everything that you have into the small chance that something good can come through. I think creating our lives can sometimes feel like making a rock bleed. That resistance doesn’t mean something isn’t meant for you, it’s a signal to lean into your reality and push a little harder.
a soft death 