Great, I have a new site, so what’s next?
I guess it depends on what you’re into… but if you’re like me, someone who likes to have passion projects lined up one right after the other, I’d suggest you not pour anymore energy into any of those thoughts, and instead, attempt to just to sit the fuck down and take a really good breather. Like not just a couple days, or weeks… try to take a couple months off from having plans and attempt to live a “simple life.”
As a modern day creative, it gets really easy to be inundated with the demands of what an artist or designer is required to know, learn, execute, remember, practice, deliver, revise, research, experience, or teach. Shit, as a modern day anything, it’s just endless in terms of all the things we’ve got to juggle, whether it be family, kids, partners, finances, news, debt, health, traffic, events, “balance”… We get pulled into so many directions at any given moment, and more than likely, our ability to balance is met relentlessly with a battle for our attention that starts the moment you wake up. And what’s sneaky is that it evolves until you don’t even recognize those factors anymore… it’s just normal to be spread thin.
I guess I got used to it… and eventually I got used to being fine with where I was at in life. I made the jump from fulltime to freelance in 2012 (good job Ra), then I made the jump from freelance to business owner in 2017 (great job Ra) … and now in 2022, I’m making the jump from business owner to….. well… I don’t know… I’m sort of making it up as I go.. (okay Ra) I just know that I don’t want to regress… I want to pro-gress, but I’ve also sort of hit a brick wall in defining what that next move is…
And so, my natural instinct at the beginning of the year, is that I wanted to simply, “change.” I went though some turbulence at the end of ‘21, and it brought me to a point where I was realizing that my inability to change, was hindering me from seeing things outside of my own perspective. I had accumulated a degree of personal success that I had never seen within my family, and so it felt like I had finally gotten something right in my life, and because of that, I imagined myself as some sort of legitimate authority within my circle. And though those past victories should be celebrated, holding onto that past identity of being a leader, being right, being successful, began to create an invisible weight that I didn’t realize I had taken on. Eventually, that weight was felt and I was no longer able to maneuver in the manner my mind had envisioned. The greatness only existed in my mind, but no longer in my reality.
So what’s next?
I’ve been sittin’ my ass down man, and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about it. I’m grateful for my business to somehow stay afloat, even though I have zero system on how to keep it going. And so while it’s afforded me some time and space, I’ve been able to make the time and make the space, to practice “The Basics.”
It’s funny, I think of how the term ‘basic bitch’ isn’t really viewed as anything worth becoming, but through my recent experience and journey in self development, being a basic bitch is actually really hard.. Like forreal forreal hard.
Try sleeping early, waking early (5am), meditating for 10-15 minutes, journaling 3 pages (45 min), reading 10 pages (20-30min), exercising 45 minutes, cook a breakfast that’s diet compliant, and chug some coffee, all before the work day starts at 9am… consistently… those are all basic things, reading, writing, exercising, and eating healthy. And because they’re so basic, they’re the first things to get dismissed on our list of priorities. I’m guilty of ignoring these basics since… forever! And after spending January taking stock of where I was at in my life, I decided and committed myself to making my next moves about becoming the best I could at being a basic bitch.
It’s July ‘22 now.. and doing basic shit consistently, has been a game changer. I feel more human. I feel more connected with myself. I feel like the greatness that lives in my mind, is finally starting to manifest outside of it, into my reality. Real talk, going out there and becoming the most basic ass muf*ka I can be is going to separate me from the pack in the long run.
Love, Ra