Months ago I quit my dream job. I experienced what a nervous breakdown can really mean, how it hotly permeates the brain, muscles and organs, like overloaded fuses bursting leaving nothing but a mass of skin, charred and empty. It was work that was fulfilling – and applauded by all those around me (I loved the small talk of “what do you do?”). The flip side was that it required all my waking energy.
I ignored the red flags my body showed for an entire year, because the outside picture looked like I was thriving… until one fine Sunday, I came to a breaking point and was left with no choice but to hand in my resignation. I felt impotent, a failure, this is the point where all the Jordan Petersonesque internet trolls would slap a “snowflake” sticker on my forehead.
During days of slow recovery and therapy, I understood the importance of being bold to get what you want, even when what you want is fulfilment through peace of mind. Almost prophetically, I came across Audre Lorde’s collection of essays called When I Dare To Be Powerful.
Lorde speaks about harnessing the power of the erotic, patriarchally confined to the bedroom, to enrich our lives in every aspect. As the revolutionary poet explains, the word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects – born of chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony.
“When I speak of the erotic then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life-force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.”
Your dream life can be more than how you win your bread or how much bread you win. It can be having time to get lost in good books, picking up a new craft, traveling to unknown places, being a parent, being an artist, giving yourself the capacity to enjoy the smallest moments of daily joy.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t go after your dream job. I’m saying that your dream life isn’t necessarily chained to that. Don’t live a life that sounds good at parties, because happiness, as cliche as it sounds, takes internal work. Dare to be powerful and find something that makes your mundane ethereal.
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