If You Can Manage It, Be Sure to Do What You Want

As some of you know, I took off three months from my usual tasks (mostly answering emails, doing interviews, speaking, etc.) to focus more on writing and research. I was surprised by how happy it made me. Almost ecstatic! I realize that I thrive on being creative, as do most HSPs, and I have not been seriously creative for years. Interviews and emails often involve repeating the basic information about HSPs over and over. I do enjoy speaking and especially answering questions, which allows for creativity.  But speaking involves hours of arrangements to be made (more emails) beforehand, and afterwards I am always exhausted. I needed to go back to what I was designed to do, and that is creative writing – whether fiction, nonfiction, or new research articles.

“But you write so much already!” To be truthful, after twenty-five years of writing advice for HSPs, I find that it no longer feels creative. Of course, it may come to feel creative again, but I want any future advice I give to be more creative, wiser. Deeper. After being asked so often how HSPs have been affected by the Pandemic, at one time I might have given some pat answers – maybe “in three ways,” even – but now I feel strangely irritated by the question. How should I know? How are left-handed persons affected? Not only are we differentially susceptible, but we are all in different circumstances and have other personality traits. What about introverts versus extraverts? People living alone versus living with people they love, or living with people they can barely stand? I just do not feel like lumping you all together right now, on the one hand, or trying to address the issues of dozens of subgroups of HSPs.

So here is some advice after all, in the form of questions without answers from me because it would differ for each of you. Are you doing, at least some of the time, what you really love to do? What you feel you were meant to do? What makes you happy? Can you find a way to do it more?

One other thing: Once you get into anything truly creative, be prepared for serious moments of doubt about its quality and how others will receive it. Creative means different. Different is risky. But if the work is making you happy, maybe it is worth the risk. And maybe it is excellent.

Bottom line: Three months was not enough for me and I am going to continue focusing on the writing I want to do right now. You will see emails from me less often. Let me be your role model. If you can manage it, be sure to do what you want. None of us will live forever.