Essay

We're All Going to Have Regrets

Feed your artist.

We're all going to have regrets. We're all going to fall short of our potential.

But we have to try. And we have to push beyond the default. Find a routine that actually serves the interests of our higher self. We have to feed our inner artist. Too many lives are lived without ever getting to experience an earned momentum in an intentional practice — one that was ignited by passion.

If you are a writer, you must write. A painter, you must paint.

That is all there is to it.

And just like every child is raised being asked what they want to do or be when they grow up, you must ask yourself — your inner child — what it is you want to do now that you're grown up. What is it you want to be when you're not working, or raising the kids, or trying to make ends meet?

What is the passion you can't give up? What is the dream that now mocks you? The dream that makes you feel sick every time you see someone on TV, with less talent than you, doing the very thing you wanted to do but never gave yourself permission to do?

Give yourself the fucking permission.

Do it now.

Find the time, and then guard it with your life.

It is not selfishness. It is not indulgence. It is not delusion. It is life-force — and without it you will be sick, unhappy, agitated, anxious, and petty.

Stop it. Stop being less-than.

Take twenty minutes — find twenty-fucking-minutes in your day — and write a poem.

Do it.

You just wasted that much time doom-scrolling, so don't tell me you don't have the time.

You've got to feed your artist.

Else, their starvation will become revolution.