Letters from the Editor: On prioritizing yourself, the self-publishing boom, and more

Getting Your Priorities is Self-Care

Photo by STIL on Unsplash

​I don’t know whether to chalk it up to the end of the summer or if I’m starting to feel the pressure of the holidays already, but lately I’ve been finding myself getting so frustrated with the amount of stuff I have to do and how little time I have to do it all.

For example, right now I have a million and one things to take care of at home. For weeks I’ve wanted to switch out my summer clothes for my winter ones; go through the stack of magazines that have colonized a corner of my living room; find a new dermatologist.

But instead of switching out my clothes, I’m at a friend’s baby shower. Instead of tackling the magazines, I’m cooking an over-the-top (very worth it) date night dinner. Instead of researching dermatologists, I’m helping a friend with their resume.

All of these random odds and ends keep coming up, and I end up getting pulled away from my overarching projects and goals to keep up with all the obligations I have to the people I care about and more due dates than a maternity ward. And it kind of sucks because those bigger projects are the ones that will help me out a lot and improve my life if I can get them done…but I don’t ever seem to have the time. And because they're not things with strict deadlines, they just keep getting shuffled back to the bottom of the pile.

Maybe you’ve felt this kind of frustration lately with your writing. Unfortunately, our projects don’t exist in a vacuum, and the real world can – and frequently will – interfere with our progress. You get pulled away from what you’re passionate about by your day job, by the writing you do to pay the bills, by your family and friends...the list goes on. At some point you’ll start to wonder, am I doomed to an eternity of postponing my long-term satisfaction for short-term subsistence?

I don’t think so.

clue me in