I’ve had this feeling before. It’s called contentment. Will it last?
Like a code uttered down the phone by a kidnapped person to raise the alarm of the person on the other end, there was a meme circulating recently in which people offered up the words they would say if they needed to issue a cry for help. They were often funny, low-stakes, unpopular opinions. Things like, “If you ever see me post about how good Real Housewives of New Jersey season 6 is, just know I’m in trouble.” Because trust me, no one would ever announce that genuinely.
What I’m about to say would have classified as a cry for help if uttered by me a few years ago, but today it’s just a new attitude I’ve noticed has taken up residence in my heart and mind. The thing that would’ve sent me calling a therapist for an emergency appointment between the ages of 23 and 33 is: I’m not aspiring for anything.
That sentence doesn’t make me feel helpless or hopeless. I’m as far from unmotivated as you can get; for a full-time freelancer who makes my own schedule, most weeks look like a terrifying grid of colour-coded responsibilities. I’m not meandering or searching for purpose and meaning. I’m booked, busy and totally content not hoping for anything more.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
I’ve felt a version of this before. A few years ago, over cocktails with a friend on a warm night in late summer, I felt a lump in my throat as I described the moment I’d had that day. I was sitting in the home office of the apartment I loved and paid the rent for on my own, my sweet adopted cat was purring between my hands as I worked, the bookcase behind me had sections dedicated to the magazines and newspapers my writing had appeared in, and a few stray copies of the memoir I published when I was 27 and objectively too young to have been writing a memoir. And I felt a sudden, overwhelming sense that it was just … enough. I might never achieve another big milestone in my life, but I’d be totally content. My friend began referring to it as “Brodie’s epiphany”, so at odds was it with how I normally operated.
New York writer Megan O’Sullivan recently published a piece called “I’m Losing Interest In The Chase”, on her website, Byline. “I know chasing. I’ve felt the high of a hot pursuit – running after anything that would provide even a brief moment of confidence – and I know what the withdrawal feels like once it’s over,” she wrote. “I already ran out of breath only to feel brief exuberance and then find that the trophy was completely irrelevant to what I actually needed, or what I was trying to feel. So I’m just going to walk a little.”
I don’t recall exactly when the contentment dissipated. Probably when I got the notice to leave that apartment and found myself packing up those books and magazines and that cat twice in the space of seven months, needing to scrape together work and commissions to pay for the removalists and cover the time off. Or maybe it was when I saw someone I didn’t like getting a job I barely even wanted or knew existed. There’s no motivator like rage and resentment.
But recently, it’s come back. A few opportunities have come my way, and I’ve found saying no to be more simple than it’s ever been before. It didn’t leave me with a stale taste in my mouth, or the voice in my head telling me, “Saying no means no one will ever ask you again!” It was that reinforcement that I realised I was after for so long: being asked.
While I know I’m lucky to get offered promising work opportunities, I’ve been doing this job long enough to have learnt two things for certain. Firstly, it’s not a zero-sum game. The things available to me are not finite or impossible to acquire if I really set my mind to grabbing onto a good one. And secondly, I am certain now that the validation of seeing my name on an Instagram tile promoting an event I’ve agreed to participate in is not always worth the nights I will inevitably spend preparing for it, in lieu of all the other things life requires.
Melbourne designer Sienna Ludbey coined the phrase “snail girl” to sum up a similar feeling. She realised “losing drive” was really just a sign she was growing up. When you’ve grown accustomed to pace and gamifying your life – through Wordle streaks or closing exercise rings or competing in reading challenges that twist pleasure into competition – aiming for less can feel like giving up. But the less you ascribe validation to professional achievements, the more possible it is to find it in smaller, quieter, less shareable places.