New Project! New Project!

I hope you'll join me

Hello, friends! This week marks the 2-year anniversary of when I turned on paid subscriptions for this newsletter. I’m introducing something new to our conversation, but first let me offer a little history and report on how it’s going.

I started this whole project the day after my 49th birthday, January 4, 2021. I had a group of friends who’d been following my writing on Facebook for years and kept encouraging me to write more; over a hundred of them jumped in here as soon as I started the newsletter. When I moved to paid subscriptions in September dozens of those folks became paid subscribers. My gratitude was huge. To get paid for my own writing, not just to write what other people told me to? How lucky was I?!?

Eventually, the number of both free and paid subscribers grew. Not hugely, but they included people I’d never even met in person, which I’ll admit was both gratifying and shocking.

For the first two years I published twice a week all year round. Once I went paid, my paid folks got two newsletters a week, my free folks just one. But in December of 2022, I started a full-time job out of the house for the first time in almost six years and twice-weekly publication was killing me. So, I dropped down to once a week and re-framed paying subscription as simply a way to support my work, as opposed to a way to buy access to more content.

There is nothing wrong with this framing, to my mind. Other folks on Substack use it and I am a paid subscriber to some of those newsletters. Supporting writers whose work I love is always the point for me and never what else I’m going to get for my money. Still, I don’t resent it when writers paywall content either. We’re all working people here, ultimately, and workers deserve to dictate the terms of their work.

Now, at this 2nd anniversary for paid subscriptions, it feels like things are changing for me again. I’ve adjusted to the job and figured out how to make space for my writing in this new life configuration. I’ve finished up the other creative projects that were consuming a lot of my energy and time– primarily big remodeling projects on my house. This means the space in which I do the majority of my writing feels like it can finally help my writing rather than hinder it. And my personal life (Please let me not jinx myself here…) feels stable, settled, and satisfying.

All this leads me to want to dig into something new exclusively for my paid subscribers. You all have been absolute champs to support me for the last nine months for no other reason but karmic gold stars. Thank you! Now, I’d like to offer you something special.

I’m thinking of this as a side project from the main one here at Let Your Life Speak— this rambling conversation about how to practice integrity as a real, imperfect human— which I’m committing to for the next year. Might it go longer? Maybe! We’ll see what happens.

The project is about AMBITION. Here are the guiding questions…

What is ambition? Can you be ambitious while also practicing your integrity? How does that work? What makes it easier or harder?

The answer to the first question might seem obvious, but sometimes the things we think are so straightforward are exactly the things we need to investigate and unpack. I’ll admit my filters right up front: I was raised by vaguely socialist, religious parents to have a deep skepticism of capitalism. I don’t think that rich people are inherently immoral as individuals. Who am I to say? But I do think the social mechanisms that generate wealth in our society often are, and when ambition is tied to making money the question of ambition and integrity gets complicated quickly. At least for me.

Then you add in gender and a whole host of other questions arise. Are women and femmes allowed to be ambitious? How and how not?

What about ambition stirs up our deepest issues around self-worth? What guides our ambition— ego, soul, trauma, or some intertwined mish-mash of all that and more besides? How do we unravel that and does it matter?

There’s also something in here that I want to tease out about how ambition is related to desire, which means our beliefs and assumptions around desire come into play. Do we know what we want, and do we believe we get to have it? Is there discomfort around being exposed for wanting? Is there vulnerability in publicly yearning for something?

If my ambition is to make an impact on the world, whether through creativity, business, or system change, how do I do that in a way that is mindful of my actual impact and not simply my intended one?

There is wisdom to be found in releasing your work out into the world and then letting it go. What it becomes for people or with people is not entirely up to you. But there’s considerable fear for many of us about what might happen if we put ourselves really far out there. Working through that and coming to some peace with the discomfort of that is an essential part of pursuing ambition, as far as I can tell.

There is also the potential, though, that what you meant to do in fulfilling your ambition and what you manage to do are different. This is the realm of unintended consequences and harm, to yourself or others. How do you work through that and course correct? Have others managed it? What happened to their ambitions and to them?

If you’re a late-bloomer to this ambition/vocation business, how do you pursue your ambition while also honoring your existing relationships, obligations, and ongoing physical and mental health? Is it possible to pursue your ambition, in other words, in a way that is holistic, integrated, and sustainable?

Capitalist framing of ambition is so much about grind culture, hyper-focus, and life imbalance. It’s very disembodied and disassociated. I, for one, am too damn old and have worked too damn hard to heal myself enough to live in my body and, by extension, my life in a healthy, balanced way to submit to a framing of ambition that involves me mistreating myself or the people I love.

This is where we talk about burnout and self-care. This is where we also discuss parenting, eldercare, intimate relationships and the work necessary to stay present for those connections and obligations while also pursuing our dreams. I’m lucky enough to know folks who are experts in some of this, because I certainly am not. I want to bring them into the conversation and seek out other folks as well who can help us think creatively about how to stay well-nestled in the interconnected web of our lives even as we strike out and take risks.

Photo by Julia Kadel on Unsplash

In case it’s not already clear, I don’t have the answers to all of these questions. I do have some suspicions based on my own life, and I also have friends who know stuff (god bless ‘em) who I’m looking forward to bringing into our space to share what they know.

This side project calls to me because these are the questions I’m asking myself all the time these days. I want to share my answers (or the further questions I uncover) with you because having to articulate what I’m learning and thinking is an essential learning tool. I also want to hear what answers you have or come up with as we go along.

I’m really excited to learn and ponder together.

A final note about logistics: I will still be publishing for everyone every Friday, just like usual. This side project, which I am tentatively entitling “Late-Blooming Somebition” (Because, clearly, I am neither pithy nor adept at branding, but I do like to make myself laugh.) will publish twice a month on no set schedule at all. I might publish two days in a row! I might publish two newsletters weeks apart! Crazy!

The important part, for me anyway, is that there is both commitment and flexibility. Think of it as an object lesson for all of us in sustainable ambition.

I’m approaching this as a year-long project initially. I hope you’ll join me for the whole ride. I’m offering 20% off all annual memberships through the end of the month to help make that possible for folks. That’s $56, or less than $5 a month. Huzzah!

On a related note, all together we’re now a community of over 750 people! Woot-woot! Whether you choose to join me for this new project or not, I’m just so, so glad you’re here. Thank you!