To me, the only sane thing left to do is to let loose.

To loosen your grip, drop your shoulders, and throw your head back.

Letting loose is about carving out more space to be. It has nothing to do with ‘quiet quitting’, or the ever-simplistic ‘soft life’—both of which are a rejection of resilience—but rather everything to do with not being eclipsed by your ambition. Our desires propel us, but left unchecked they grow wild and snarling, drowning out the beauty of who you are and what is real, right now.

There’s enough discourse on How To and What To ‘do’. Let loose is about undoing.

***

For work, it means finding motivation beyond fear.

For love—of self and others—it means resisting polish. Accept and embrace texture.

For productivity, it means vitality—feeling alive—will give you more momentum than any tactic. 

For sanity, it means narrating your life accurately (not idealistically).

For goals, it means setting them and forgetting them. (They play a smaller role than the soundbites suggest).

For life, it means knowing you are rarely running out of time.

***

The things we want but don’t yet have—more money, time, recognition—can haunt and consume us slowly. The future, your future, feels real, vivid, possible; your community says you can, the podcasts tell you how, past accolades keep you going.

But all the while you’re a spectator: stuck here, looking over there.

In an effort to cross the gulf, we turn our day-to-day lives into bridges between what is and what could be. In our pursuits, we accumulate more—more objects, more objectives, more obligations— more, more, more with less, less, less of you left. 

The bridge (your life) now bears a significantly larger load. Initially, it stands firm and it feels good to be adept at the art of arrangement: call sister, move meeting, go to nursery, prep dinner, finish draft. Soon you start to believe the illusion; I can do it all, have it all, forever. Until. 

Until, until, until it cracks and usually by way of loss—of those we love, of health, of sanity, of well-laid plans—it buckles and breaks.

This has happened to us all at least once (that’s being generous), and each time we must claw our way back to the great big here and now, and redirect our attention—precious and in need of protection—towards something other than suspending the now for the next.

I redirected mine towards letting loose - it is my manifesto, and call to action. 

Explore this with me - let’s still do, but with more air in the room, and opt out of the pressure that prevents us from being present. 

- Shopé