A Word for the Restless
“Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”
~ Marianne Williamson
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What if I quit my job and took out a business loan to buy that little B&B that’s for sale or to open a cute little bookshop downtown? What if I somehow found a way to do consulting for something I’m extremely excited about, like something related to writing or homeschooling or …? What if we won the lottery and I could spend my days far, far away from my computer, writing more, reading more, and making cool stuff? What if this time next year I could be so excited to go to work every morning that I never snoozed my alarm and workdays felt more like weekends? Etc. Etc.
These are the types of questions that fill page upon page of my journals without fail every single fall. Honestly, I have no right whatsoever to think about any of these questions — I love what I do for work. I have zero work-related things to complain about. I feel super lucky to do what I do, to work where I get to work, and to be able to learn from and grow with the people I get to work with. As if that weren’t enough, by some miracle, I’m well-respected in my field, which is nothing to overlook in our current times. I feel so, so grateful.
Regardless, every year when fall rolls around, I get a little restless and start to wonder, does my work really matter? Am I doing what I’m meant to do? Is it time to make a change? Not to mention a brand-new question this year in particular (that we absolutely never needed, thank you very much) — will the robots put me out of work before I can find another way to pay my bills?
And every fall, without fail, I come to the same conclusion ⤵
Every type of work has its ups and downs. No matter the particulars of what we do, what makes it worth spending our precious time on (or not) is the people, the people we get to meet, the ones we get to help, the people we get to spend time getting to know, the ones who get to know us. The human element — that’s all there really is (at least for me).
Sometimes we need to make a big pivot to find the kind of people who bring out our best and make us even better. Sometimes it’s just a small pivot we need to make. But no matter what we do or where we do it, if we’re among the kind of people we know deep down we’re meant to spend our days with, we’ll find our way. Our intuition will lead the way.
If you’ve been feeling restless lately too, I hope this week’s quote from Marianne Williamson gives you a little boost ⤵
“Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”
In other words, we get to choose what our work means.
I hope that encourages you like it does me.
If you’d like a little more on the topic, here are my faves ⤵
Sparked by Jonathan Fields
Today Was Fun by Bree Groff
How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
Here’s what I’m reading right now ⤵
WHAT’S ON MY NIGHTSTAND
A friend recently surprised me with the most beautiful hardback copy of Land by Maggie O’Farrell (author of Hamnet), and I’m anxious to get started on it. So I’ll be wrapping up The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo this weekend and diving in forthwith.
WHAT’S IN MY EARBUDS
I love, love, loved listening to the final chapters of Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton last weekend and then immediately the decided to read Lois Lowry’s new novel Building 903 on audio too (because I was just too impatient and had too much to do to read the physical copy). It was great on audio! Now, I’m just starting Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel Partita (published 10/6/26), and it’s completely captured my fancy, reminding me how I completely lost myself in The Poisonwood Bible two decades ago and have never really gotten back to that place until now.
WHAT’S IN MY MORNING BASKET
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is steadily becoming my very favorite coffee companion these days, but I’ve also been dipping in and out of an old used copy of The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates this week and loving bits and pieces of it, too.
WHAT’S ON MY WEEKEND TBR LIST
This weekend’s reading agenda is #1 — finishing Dragon and #2 — taking a peek at the fresh copy of Margaret Atwood’s new memoir Book of Lives that I just checked out from the library. But one of my college kiddos is coming home for the holiday weekend, so all bets are off and I might read absolutely nothing if he ends up wanting my company :)
What about you? Read any good books lately?
I’d love to know :) Send me a message
✌🏼️💓 📚
Celeste
did AI write this? nope, this lady did ⤴ always