Up Close and Personal with Patti Callahan Henry
The Flim-Flam Hustle Myth
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about what I call the hustle-myth.
Hustle ladies, hustle! It’s exhausting right? We talk so much here at Friends and Fiction about how we are staying motivated, how we are doing morning sprints and keeping each other accountable, about our books and our families and our writing. So it might appear that we are all day-long all week-long hustle. We posted all the photos of our planning summit with all the exciting things we have coming up.
But that might just give you the wrong idea.
I don’t want to give the impression that we never stop and that we have to keep on keeping up to prove something about our worth as writers and as women.
Nope.
Enough of that flim-flam.
Yes, let’s get our work done with purpose and intent, but you know what research shows us? That what truly makes us happy is having purpose and meaning in our lives. Doesn’t that take off some of the pressure? What makes us happy isn’t DOING MORE but doing what matters.
I’ve been wondering about this and about how to hustle without burnout. How to get the job done and get the words on the page, and let’s be honest, the laundry folded and the dishes done and the bills paid, without falling into a stupor at day’s end. What good are we then?
That means that sometimes I have to step away from the computer with its never ending demands and take a walk at the river, call a friend and laugh, cook a long luxurious meal or just curl up and read for pleasure.
I definitely don’t have the answers but I am definitely asking the questions.
I don’t remember where I first heard it, but I love the phrase – “You can do anything you desire, but you can’t do everything.”
So let’s all find a little place of peace this week: a little slice of something quiet, something meaningful, something that feeds your soul and offers you purpose and meaning, and take a break from fulfilling everyone else’s expectations.
—xo pch
Friends and Fiction Newsletter Issue #16, Nov 18, 2020