How I substitute acceptance for ambition to achieve my goals

Is your ultimate goal success or fulfillment?

Photo by Colton Duke on Unsplash

Things That I Am Grateful For This Week:

1. Goggles — they are just so darn useful. Because of them I can wear my contacts and see underwater. Amazing.
2. Rice cookers — you just add rice and water and hit start and you get some great rice. Plus you can throw beans and hot sauce in there and look at that, it’s delicious.
3. My feet — we don’t have a car right now, so I’ve been toting my bookbag to the grocery store and walking everywhere and my feet are just doing their best. Getting those steps in!
4. Chemicals — I killed a spider as large as the palm of your hand with a can of bug spray, so thank you to the toxicity of deet.
5. For the fish that is Connor Gallic — the joy on this boy’s face when he pops out of the ocean is maybe the best thing in the world right now. I love seeing Connor be so serious on his computer and then I love the look that comes over his face when he realizes what really makes him happy. It’s usually swimming and nice people. And I like that a lot.
6. *Lastly, I’m grateful for you. For the lot of you that have elected to join my email list and read what I write. I appreciate it so much. (Medium readers see the end for details.)

I’ve been very homesick this week. I just want something familiar, anything that feels comforting, to be available to me. We’re pretty secluded where we are and that can feel lonely. There’s still so much that Connor and I need to get organized here in Puerto Rico. This stresses us out but there’s nothing to do but work on it until it’s done.

(New Member Note: I got married in October and moved to Puerto Rico in January.)

We’re on the hunt for a car, and a long term rental as we’re currently in an AirBnB until March. We’ve had to be aware of car scammers which is frustrating but we’ll get it done. For the first time ever, I am pursuing freelance writing full time. It’s just as hard as I thought it would be but the experience is life changing. I have dreamed of being alone with my thoughts and the pressure to create something, and actually getting to experience that, hooooly shit, it’s so hard. Like, it’s so hard!

It is amazing how different my mind feels from when I lived in Jersey. I just think about completely different things. There’s no checklist of social events, there’s no way to run by my mom’s house, I can’t run to Starbucks, and it takes Amazon like three weeks to deliver. Also, our wifi sucks.

So, I get to keep almost 60–70 percent of my brain focused on writing, for the first time ever. This feels like kind of an experiment. Do I really want to write as a career? Will I get bored of it? Am I willing to work hard at this?

And since it is my life now, I could clearly hear the answer, and see the answer in my habits. Yes. What a relief!

When you’re living at home with your mom and siblings, who double as your best friends, it’s hard to push yourself to a mental state where you can access the kind of power needed to attempt hard things.

You have to put yourself in a situation where failure is not an option. At least I do. If I’m comfortable, I’m not going to attempt the really hard thing.

It’s weird, I’ve always known what was important to me. People are everything. My family, my friends and Connor. They are all I need to make me feel fulfilled and whole.

I would talk to my friends about feeling like I was missing this “drive” or “ambition.” I saw the value in those things, obviously, and I wanted them. I’d even call my cousin when I felt something akin to focus. We’d say things like, “I think I know what people are talking about now.” But then as I studied this feeling, it would fizzle out and I’d be left looking at it like, like I knew it wasn’t shit.

I love this about myself. It is a relief to accept this as something good.

There are so many different things that drive people. Our personalities come into play, our fears, the things that have hurt us, the things we’ve been good at. It can be as simple as money, security or status. Everything culminates and results in tendencies that can be frustrating or beneficial or both. Wherever we are, we have to accept who we are before we can make any changes or move forward, right?

To everyone reading this who is super passionate about a career or a hobby or has something that they dedicate a large amount of their time to, I am genuinely so in awe and amazed by you. I think it is so good. I have so much to learn from you.

I just have never been able to relate, until now.

I have only ever felt fulfilled by being in the presence of the people who make up my heart. The people who have contributed to the person I am today. The people who joke with me, laugh with me. I am so lucky to have decades of memories with a whole cast of people who I trust and love in a way that is ineffable.

When I was living at home, I would go to write or apply to writing jobs, and something would hold me back. I’d go walk into a room where my sister was instead or I’d go lie on the couch while my mom read a book or baked an apple crumble at 9 p.m. for no reason. It just felt like a more valuable use of my time.

Procrastination and the fear of failure played a part for sure. Not knowing where to start, lack of ideas, laziness, maybe some ADHD, lack of focus. Sure, these are things that happened.

But the only way I got past those mental obstacles, was to accept that I am a fully, deeply happy person as I am. I know what I value and more importantly, I have what I value. Everything else will be extra.

Once I accepted this I was able to assess if writing was something I was willing to sacrifice for. Well, I’m on an island with no car and no family so the answer was yes. I’m willing to sequester myself for a year or two for a couple of reasons.

Reasons I Knew I Could Survive Leaving My Family and Breaking My Heart:

1. I trust myself. I’m discovering more and more about myself. I’m super young, just a wee 27 year-old! I have gained a lot of peace of mind over the last couple of years. I’ve lost the anxiety of the post-graduate with no goals. As I know myself more, I trust myself more. I trust my decisions more and because of this, I can make more life-changing ones.
2. I read a lot. I discovered the value of non-fiction and the tools that are available to us all through discipline and sustainable habits. I love habits, I think they’re so cool. You can learn so much just by reading. There are so many sources available to inform us.
3. I couldn’t do any of this without Connor. The man is so different, lol. We’re a good match because I am the “sit-back-and-observe-until-we-understand-our-surroundings” type, and Connor is the “alright-I-see-what-we’ve-got-here-let’s-do-it-right-now-go-go-go” type. I don’t think failure bothers him like it does me and that fascinates me. He pushes and I pull, but we both really appreciate the other, and so far it has worked. At least, it got us to Puerto Rico.
4. I have goals! Over the last 4 years I learned how to approach a goal, how to set small goals to get to the big goal, and why this is a good thing. I attribute it all to the gym. Working out is amazing for so many reasons but for me, the main reason was what it taught me about habits, goals, results and my own capability.
5. I need to know what I am capable of. I need to know if my hard work can push whatever skill I have to its full potential. I just gotta know!

In one of Mark Manson’s articles he says, “Ultimately, the most meaningful freedom in your life comes from your commitments, the things in life for which you have chosen to sacrifice.”

That is what I have experienced this past year. I asked myself what was important to me almost every day as I got ready to get married, as we decided where we wanted to live, as I questioned how I wanted to spend my time.

Choosing what you want to work hard for, choosing what we suffer through, is the true freedom. We’re just built to grow. We only need to choose in what way we will grow.

I don’t need to have a job that I’m passionate about. I don’t need to live in an endless summer. I don’t need to have an adventure every day. I don’t need to live a writer’s fantasy that sounds like I’m trying to be a character in a book. None of that is necessary for me to have a beautiful and fulfilled life. I just need my people.

But, however it happens, we should all experience what it’s like to chase something kind of ridiculous, if only because of what it might teach us. Connor and I have flipped our reality so extremely, that we’ve woken up completely. We are hyper aware every day of being alive.

Yesterday (Thursday) I walked up into town to buy stamps. I got a coffee and sat on a bench in the plaza. I sat there and took in my surroundings. I noted three different types of butterfly, counted the number of people around me, wondered what game the old men were playing, and I noticed an ant marching toward something. There was a wasp on the ground, writhing on its back, shoving it’s abdomen up in the air and then righting itself, crawling frantically on the sidewalk. I saw the ant attach itself to a leg and the wasp freaked out, trying to throw it. The ant seemed to calmly disembark from the wasp and approach from the other side. I felt like I was watching a gory death on the Discover channel.

I noticed how easy it was for me to watch this and how peaceful I felt just observing. It felt so nice, like a new habit was forming. My mind just feels more ready to be still, to observe and wonder. I want to know more, and I want to learn. I want to research wasps and their behavior. I want to know why the ant would bother with the wasp or why the wasp was ever on the ground to begin with.

I met Connor at the beach after my walk and I couldn’t help but smile a goofy grin as soon as I saw him. There is a shallow pool of water by us that looks unassuming but underwater it is full of really cool fish. Connor likes to break up his work day by going to see the fishies. As I approached he stuck his arm out of the water, waved and then dove back in with a performative splash. I laughed and got ready to hear all about the fish and all of the silly names he’ll have come up with in lieu of scientific ones.

Slowly, carefully, I pry my thoughts away from what’s happening in my mom’s kitchen in South Plainfield. I take the fingers of my thoughts and I release their grip on what needs to get done tomorrow. As if I were sitting on the edge of a pool, I slip myself into the present. If I have to miss my family, let it be here and let it be with him.

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