Not exactly my year of rest and relaxation: Some hard earned lessons of 2024

Doing the scary thing is both exhausting and rewarding, and my greatest lesson of 2024.

Hello and happy Sunday darlings.

I think we all tend to reminisce when entering a new year. As I pack away all the baggage that 2024 left me with, I ponder: What has changed? What happened? Have I changed, and possibly even learned something?

I kept feeling like I should write something. Some sort of reflection on the year that was 2024. And what a year.

So I have had this draft saved with all these thoughts on pop culture and what has passed, and I could not muster up the energy to finish. I honestly think the internet has enough think-pieces on brat, microtrends and demure without me weighing in. The cultural timeline is oversaturated with content we have no attention left to consume as it is.

So I thought, in following with my new years resolution, I would do the scary thing: Be a little personal.

The best lessons are in fact hard earned - who knew

Looking at 2024, the running theme seems to be, at least for me personally, that it is a year of both challenges and changes. And yes I did resist the urge to make a joke about “Challengers” there. (One of the best films of the year in my opinion).

After losing my job I felt very untethered. It is a scary thing.

Yet it also ended up opening a lot of doors for me in terms of creativity. Without the safety of a 9-5 I had no choice, but to dive headfirst into all that scares me. Not only did I have to do a lot of freelance work and pitches and put myself out there, when I really wanted to draw the blinds and stay in bed, I Also had to confront the possibility of failure head on.

Having spent the better part of my 20s building a career of sorts, losing a job felt like a great personal failure for me. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t personal. It didn’t matter that it had nothing to do with my capabilities. I have always feared losing a job, and suddenly that fear came true.

And here is the surprising thing: When I suddenly found myself in the middle of the thing that I have been afraid of, it somehow lost power. I’m not saying that it was easy. However, failure is a part of life. It’s uncomfortable and scary and a hard lesson to learn.

Failure can seem like a fire burning your life to the ground. It forced your focus to shift. And from the ashes, new possibilities arise. Some of my ego definitely died in that fire. But when the smoke cleared I found myself on a different creative plain.

Yes, maybe I lost a job, but because of that I have: Gotten closer with my friends. Dared to lean on people for support. I have started this substack. I got published in magazines and papers I have dreamed of being published in. I spent days sending pitches I never thought I’d pitch, withing stories I loved, crying over the uncertainty, then getting myself together and writing some more. I have let my creativity lead the way. I have done so many things I never thought I would have done. It was all scary, but putting some of my vanity aside, I felt the fear and did it anyway.

Between fear and comfort

Doing the things that are the most scary have a tendency to be the most rewarding. It’s rather rude really, how as humans we are so good at building comfort zones only to have to knock them down in order to actually grow.

Maybe I am just stating the obvious here. But in my experience we so easily grow comfortable with the walls we put up. We shelter ourselves from the possibility of feelings and hardships, nuzzling in the comfort of a life where we maybe don’t even have try so hard.

Comfort is one thing, but settling out of fear of the unknown is another.

I have heard this from multiple friends as we settle into adulthood. They’re comfortable. There isn't really that much change anymore. Out of school we find a job and a flat and possibly a partner. The rollercoaster slows for a second. Is this really life?

The faux intellectualism of your 20s and settling down has been thoroughly reflected in thousands of books. I don’t think I have anything unique to offer here really. And yet, in the middle of establishing a life, I always wonder where the line is between comfort and stagnation is.

Do we, when settling into our lives, forget to look for possible potential? Is it even a bad thing to lower ourselves firmly into the hot bath of a life that isn’t ever-changing? After all, life will always, and inevitably it seems, surprise us. I have no answers. If that wasn’t clear. But I am learning’ with every year that passes, and isn’t that in itself a beautiful thing?

I am maybe as scared of settling as I am of the unknown. It’s a dualism of fears if you will.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke has said that our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure. I think there is some truth in that.
And whilst I will still indulge in the comforts of life: Listening to the same five artists on repeat, watering the seeds of the friendships I have held onto for decades, feeling the deep pull of familiarity that only comes from fully knowing someone or something, it be a favourite person or a favourite book.

I will also seek out the unknown. The things that make my heart beat just thinking of it.

For 2025 I want to keep doing the scary thing. Who knows what I will find? Maybe it’s a comfort.

Also please let me know if these personal rambling posts are something you’re even into, and maybe share a lesson you learned in 2024.