Dear World: Why Does Everything Have to Be "Worth It?"

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

What if you were by yourself and you had no obligations and no deadlines and no emails and no ragey authenticator codes that expire in 5…4…3…anddddd….you could go anywhere in the world and study anything in the world?

What ・ would ・ you ・ study?

What if there were no thoughts of practicality; no thoughts about “what will I do with this?”; no thoughts about “how will I make money with it?”; no thoughts about “oh, hell, the mortgage needs to be paid and my greys are showing and I still owe taxes and what is this “toll-by-mail” bill I just received???? Didn’t I pay that one? I don’t even remember driving through New York???? Do I have a brain tumor? Why is my thigh twitching? Am I really that old that I can’t go up four flights of stairs without MY THIGH TWITCHING?

Maybe it’s dehydration.

Isn’t everything dehydration?

I’m pretty sure my entire adult identity is dehydration.

It can be overwhelming, this idea that you ~could~ do something different with your life. (But, how?!) That you could be a completely different person, with a completely different personality, and a completely different wardrobe, and a completely different life. What would you wear if you were an archaeologist in Ireland, digging up Viking artefacts all day? What would you wear if you owned a uber-cool branding company in Denmark? What would you wear if you made jewelry in a teeny tiny stone building in Italy? What would you wear if you wrote books from an old farmhouse in the Pennsylvania countryside?

(Spoiler alert: you would order XL sweatpants from Wilkes University, your alma mater, and when they would arrive, you would realize you ordered the men’s size, and they would be A FOOT TOO LONG, and you would wear them anyway. Rolled up. Over slippers. The ultimate in cozywear.)

What if you knew it would be perfect?

And, what if you knew that this decision to pursue it were…the absolute right decision?

What if you KNEW that it was going to work out—and you’d be happy and celebrated and wealthy and…well?

What if you could just stop doubting everything? Your ideas, your heart, your competence?

What if you could wake up tomorrow and go to class to learn a whole new thing—and have so much fun?

What class would you go to?

What.
Class.
Would.
You.
Go.
To?

Maybe you should just go to the class—without doing anything else. Without turning it into this big, scary thing. Without it needing to be ALL OR NOTHING. Without you having to risk your livelihood for it.

What if it didn’t need to be the death of an identity?

What if it didn’t need to upend everything?

What if you could just….try something new?

We’re (maybe?) too attached to the outcome. Too scared to waste our time. Too worried it won’t be “worth it.” Too weirded out by the idea that maybe we won’t recognize ourselves in the mirror.

How often do we avoid great, magnificent, energizing, fantastic fucking things because we expect them to save us?

Because we need them to carry us? To hold us? To be our new identity?

Do you know what kind of pressure it is, asking something to save you?

Do you know how often we don’t start, because starting means that you will have to prove yourself once again?

Proving yourself is exhausting.

We did it when we were 15.
And 25.
And 35.
And, it’s like: when do you get to stop? When is it enough, to finally feel as if you have ~accomplished?~

Perhaps the secret of feeling accomplished is not in perfectly working on meaningless tasks, 5 days a week, but in imperfectly working on one big one that thrills your skull.

I mean, isn’t that what we’re doing here? Why we’re here reading? Because we want to come alive? And we want to feel inspired by other people who ARE?

Maybe life is just a really, really, really, really long enrollment period.

Like, you think you’ve already chosen your major, but surprise: you can switch at any time. You can walk right back down to the registrar’s office of your soul, slam your little manila folder on the counter, and say:

“Hi, yes, I’d like to withdraw from Trying To Be Impressive 101 and instead enroll in Things That Make Me Feel Alive For Absolutely No Reason, please.”

And the registrar—who is a tired woman with a short red bob, doing her best—will look over her glasses and go:

“…Okay, but you still need to take Intro to Disappointment, because that’s just a gen-ed.”

And you’ll go, “Cool, cool. I’ve actually already taken that class. Several times. I might be TA’ing it next semester.”

And she’ll nod. Because she knows.

And then she’ll hand you a new schedule. And it will have things like:

• Ceramics: Make A Bowl That Looks Like Feelings
• French Cinema Where No One Says Anything But You Still Cry
• The History of Doorways and Why We Keep Walking Through Them
• Breadmaking for People Who Are Trying to Feel Something

And you’ll be so excited to go.
You’ll pack a little bag.
You’ll bring a pen you actually like.
You’ll walk into the classroom of your own becoming like the nerd you once were, but the sexy kind now.

And the professor will say:

“Welcome. You’re allowed to be new here.”

And your whole nervous system will just exhale.
Like you haven’t exhaled since childhood.

Because being new is not the problem.
Pretending you’re not new is the problem.

Maybe you don’t need a full personality rebrand.
Maybe you don’t need to burn your life down.
Maybe you just need to let yourself try something without already needing to be good. Without needing it to be your thing. Without needing it to “justify itself.”

Maybe you can begin, without first earning the right to begin.

Maybe you are allowed to put your backpack on tomorrow morning and go to class.

The class can be:

A pottery studio.
A library.
A trail in the woods.
A café full of strangers.
A YouTube tutorial where someone with a soft voice teaches you how to sharpen knives.
A quiet moment with your own mind.

The world is just…one big university we forget we’re enrolled in.

And the tuition was simply: being alive.

So roll your stupid too-long sweatpants up.
And bring the part of you that still believes in more.

Not to change your life.
But to meet yourself again.

Because maybe the thing you’re craving isn’t a new identity.

Maybe it’s just…yourself, but hydrated.