Trajectory
Gratitude, acceptance, less counting
Our time is short but our stories are much bigger than we realize.
…
I tend to be a year-in-review and goal-setting kind of person this time of year. For reasons that aren’t fully apparent to me, I haven’t felt compelled to do that.
Instead, I’ve been thinking more about trajectories. Rather than “what do I want to do or accomplish in 2023,” I find myself asking, “based on the last year or two, what’s likely to be true for me in the next year or two? “
I’m still working out what those trajectories might be: my work, my health, my relationships, and more. As I ponder, I’m really enjoying not picking out a point on the horizon and beginning to sprint for it. Instead, there is a sense of acceptance of what is (or has been) true in the recent past and hopefulness is a broad sense of “what could be.”
2022 was, in many ways, an incredible year for me. And most of it didn’t come from things I planned, manifested, or intended. To be sure, it wasn’t all luck. Some of it was privilege, some of it was based on hard work in the past. But overall, I’m simply holding the year with a deep sense of gratitude. And that’s the posture I want to take into 2023—regardless, if possible, of what kind of year it will turn out to be.
I was recently finishing Big Magic by Liz Gilbert, the last book I’ll read in 2022. It’s a book about creativity and the creative process, though not just for writers and artists but for anyone who is creating in any sense of the word.
Her most famous book is Eat, Pray, Love, which was a New York Times bestseller and turned into a movie starring Julia Roberts.
In one section of Big Magic, Gilbert is reflecting on the success of Eat, Pray, Love, and what that meant for expectations—those she had for herself and what others would try to put on her. “How will you ever top that?” is a phrase she often heard, from herself and others, and one I imagine we can all relate to in some way.
Her main, disarming response to this question is simple: “Who says there’s a top?”
Who says this will be the top? Who says that critical acclaim is the top? Who says “the top” is what we need or want most? Who says we need to even measure?
There is something freeing about choosing not to measure, which is what I hear in her response, “who says there is a top?” What can you stop measuring? What can I stop measuring? And what would we gain by doing so?
I love the show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. I’ve watched all of the available episodes of Netflix multiple times and just got the book this Christmas. Being a Seinfeld fan is only part of it. The show is something I can turn on as background noise as well as something I can sit and be totally captivated by.
One of my favorite moments (and there are many) is when Jerry is spending the day with Judd Apatow.
Writer, director, producer, and comedian, Apatow is the mind behind movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Trainwreck. He was also the creator, writer, director, and producer of the TV show, “Freaks and Geeks.” It’s a cult classic of sorts now, but it wasn’t widely watched and was canceled after 18 episodes—only 12 of which aired on NBC.
In his conversation with Jerry, as they eat burgers and drink chocolate milkshakes, Apatow says:
Apatow: I was so happy with how "Freaks and Geeks" came out, that in my head, I thought, "My career is basically over. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, and everything else is gravy."
Seinfeld: Wow.
Apatow: And so nothing else matters. I can experiment, I can do anything, because I did what I wanted to do perfectly, once.
Seinfeld: That is very healthy. I don't think you need to go to the shrink anymore.
Apatow: I think you're right.
This is how I want to enter 2023: I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish and everything else is gravy.
Has life or even just 2022 been perfect? No, and I’m not even sure what that means, “perfect.” Are there things I still want to do, to see, to have? Sure. But I’ll muster all the courage I can in order to have and maintain a mindset of gratitude and acceptance, come what may.
This is what I think is meant by the word equanimity—to be large enough to contain the highs and lows without giving ourselves over to the pursuit of another high or the depths of despair.
Gratitude, acceptance, less counting.
Links to Check Out
Everything Happens podcast: Why Your Creativity Matters with Elizabeth Gilbert. A delightful listen and a good one if you need one more listen before the end of the year.
LastPass breach from the perspective of a competitor. LastPass had a massive breach and the details are still coming out. Some valuable insights and lessons here from LP competitor, 1Password.
And I can’t fully resist end-of-year lists, so…
My movies from 2022: I started tracking the movies I watched by using Letterboxed. See the rundown here.
My books from 2022: My favorite book from 2022 was Do Hard Things by Steve Magness and I can’t recommend it enough. Below are the 13 books I read this year.
Generosity breeds more generosity. I’ve written before about why it actually may be good for us all to share more openly about the ways in which we donate our time, money, and resources. To that end, here are the organizations our family supported in 2022: Equal Justice Initiative, our local soup kitchen, Allegro, Razom for Ukraine, Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, Planned Parenthood, The Center for Action and Contemplation, the American Cancer Society, the CJD Foundation, Evergreen, and the Indiana Wildlife Federation.
For the Road
A few of my favorite photos from 2022
