⚖️ Discipline or Grace?

Letting go of the guilt (letter 228)

Some uke chords to listen to while you read:

Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Chicago, Illinois!

I’ve gone running for the first time in two weeks and it feels great to put whatever virus I had behind me (even though this residual cough is less than pleasant). The air feels fresh here, and the sun is shining bright. It’ll be another fun wedding weekend here.

A fun factoid I want to share is that my first-ever Chicago dog, which I tried last night, was quite scrumptious. I lived here from 2019-2021 and never tried one before. Whoopsie daisy. Better late than never. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, let’s dive into letter 228 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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❓Question to think about

What’s my relationship to discipline and grace?

🖊️Writing

My neurons have been firing away, thinking about discipline and grace. They are and have been for a year or so. I view grace and discipline like yin and yang or masculine and feminine. These contrasting forces and how to balance them pull me into contemplation often.

Yesterday, a friend reminded me on a call that I don’t have to publish these letters on Substack every week. In fact, I don’t have to do any of this writing thing at all. It’s all my decision.

It’s all self-imposed rules. These past 228 weeks, it’s just me, myself, and I. I’ve been at this for four and a half years. As a challenge in 2020, I wanted to see if I could make it to 100. I seriously considered quitting at the end of 2022, but then I chatted with my friend Nate, who wanted to make it to 100. I was curious what that’d feel like. I took a week off and then came back in letter 92. In high school, during the manic Monday of hell week for swim team, I swam 100 100-yard lengths of the pool. After, I felt invincible (and like a limp noodle). I ate dumplings in Singapore with my Twitter friend Visa and he kept standing by his philosophy to do 100 things. I especially agreed after making it that far; I’ve still been going. Publishing each week has been one of the most consistent things in my life.

Looking back in hindsight, it's funny how this started out as fun, new and exciting. As a way to become confident in my words and have an outlet to express myself.

Though, lately, inspiration has been more challenging to come by. Consistency is not sexy. It’s damn hard. Anyone whose created a new habit longer than a couple months gets it. What starts light and somewhat enjoyable starts to feel like an unpaid job on other days. I recognize that the life of a creator is not as fantastical as Youtubers make it seem.

Maybe that means I’m in a dip? This is when I’m supposed to pull myself up by the bootstraps and keep going anyway… right? It’s almost like I trained myself to turn this pursuit of weekly sharing online into something I need.

Over time, my mindset on writing online shifted into something like flossing. I made my hygienist Elizabeth's job much harder a few days ago. My gums inflamed and bled everywhere. She asked me how often if ever I flossed. WE both already knew the answer to that question. I am the daughter of a dentist, value dental hygiene and realize I need to floss… and yet… I don’t always get to it. It ends up being a weekend routine. I don’t want my teeth or gums to atrophy. Similarly, I don’t want my practice of publishing to atrophy.

Am I really comparing my writing to flossing right now?? I know, I know. I don’t want to make my writing feel like a chore. I need to shift my mindset back to where sharing my writing is something I want to do.

I am a creative being.
I want to express myself.
I like to feel courageous.
I like to connect.
I want to have my words online.
So why wouldn’t I keep going?

In lieu of my current feelings about feeling like my newsletter is akin to weekly flossing, I am tipping the scale of grace and discipline towards grace.

The hardest part about this pendulum that swings between grace and discipline is abstaining from feeling guilty when I am all discipline or all grace. It’s all about balance, which I know, is annoying.

I’m going to stop feeling like I need to apologize for my handwriting or something being less thoughtful than perfection. I’m still going to keep going and will share each week, but with that grace, I might be sharing in shorter lengths. And it might be a wider variety of things that I’d like to “show and tell” from my life and what I’ve been pondering, feeling, or experiencing.

Confessing this to the 772 of you who signed up will make you want to unfollow me. I welcome you to do so if this does not resonate.

One of my main intentions for 2024 was to make my life zesty. I’ve been doing this by listening to where my energy goes, and that energy is flowing towards less expectations for what these letters will be.

Life goes by so fast. Being a disciple to discipline every day isn’t the way I want to move through this life. Sometimes, it’ll be necessary, but not for this outlet I am writing on today. This is my space where I want to have fun writing and build my muscle of sharing.

I grant myself grace.

And I grant you grace too. 🕊️

Until next week,

Jen

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Here are some other snippets I’d like to share:

📸Photo of the Week

The girl's trip to northern Michigan last weekend was a huge success. We slowed down, cooked in, sang along to “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz on the patio with the sunset, ate fresh peaches, and walked the doodles in the woods.

So wholesome. I love these girls. <3

🌟Quote to inspire

"Inspiration comes on the twenty-fifth attempt, not the first. If you want to make something excellent, don't wait for a brilliant idea to strike. Create twenty-five of what you need and one will be great. Inspiration reveals itself after you get the average ideas out of the way, not before you take the first step.” —James Clear

🙏Shoutouts

Some gratitude I would like to express for this week:

• To Cullin for gifting me the Birb by Bird book by Anne Lamott. I can't wait to read it!

• to

  Alivia Duran
  for courageously carving her path, leaving her FT work after a decade to pursue her own projects. Check out her writing!

• To my cousin Christina for making me feel seen for how we both want to be spontaneous yet also have forethought in our days. I appreciate her enthusiasm about my little knowledge about playing the uke.

• To my sister on the new dream job she landed this week in downtown Detroit Foundation Hotel as a new assistant pastry chef. She wakes up at 5am to get to the kitchen and prepare all sorts of tasty treats. Her creativity and devotion inspire the heck out of me.

• To my friend Dan for teaching me a new word zenocyn: the feeling that time is passing more quickly

• To the practice of how expressing gratitude makes me feel calmer and more at peace even in the chaos of this one wonderful and wild life we live.

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I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com.

Keep on learning 😁

Mahalo 🌺

Jen