Latest / Just Julia / I’m Still Angry. I’m Also Excited.
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: I'm still angry.
- 0:01SPEAKER_00: I'm also excited.
- 0:03SPEAKER_00: I've spent a ridiculous amount of time lately trying
- 0:06SPEAKER_00: to figure out how subtitles should appear on a screen.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: Which font looks right?
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: How long should the words stay there?
- 0:13SPEAKER_00: Why does cutting two seconds from a video somehow take me 20 minutes?
- 0:18SPEAKER_00: These are things I never imagined I'd be spending my mornings thinking about.
- 0:22SPEAKER_00: And yet, here I am.
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: I've been writing,
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: recording videos,
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: experimenting with ideas and learning things I'd never really tried before.
- 0:31SPEAKER_00: Some of it feels completely unfamiliar and I'm certainly not good at all of it yet.
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: But something unexpected has happened along the way.
- 0:39SPEAKER_00: I've started waking up excited.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: The strange thing is, very little about my circumstances has changed.
- 0:46SPEAKER_00: The uncertainty that was there a few months ago is still there.
- 0:49SPEAKER_00: I'm still making practical decisions,
- 0:51SPEAKER_00: looking for opportunities and trying to work out what comes next.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: There are mornings when I'm frustrated about what happened,
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: when I replay conversations,
- 1:00SPEAKER_00: think about people who disappointed me or worry about how things will turn out.
- 1:04SPEAKER_00: And then there are mornings when I wake up thinking about something I want to create
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: and I can't wait to get started.
- 1:11SPEAKER_00: Sometimes both happen on the same morning.
- 1:13SPEAKER_00: For a moment, you feel excited by the possibility.
- 1:43SPEAKER_00: Then the sensible part of your brain gets involved.
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: Is this practical?
- 1:47SPEAKER_00: Am I actually any good at it?
- 1:49SPEAKER_00: Where is this going?
- 1:50SPEAKER_00: Can I afford to spend time on something that may never lead anywhere?
- 1:54SPEAKER_00: And of course, what will people think?
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: I know those questions well.
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: There's a certain comfort in being the responsible one.
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: The woman who thinks things through,
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: considers the consequences and knows how to explain her decisions.
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: We become very good at evaluating opportunities before allowing ourselves to enjoy them.
- 2:13SPEAKER_00: And I wonder how much curiosity we quietly talk ourselves out of simply
- 2:17SPEAKER_00: because we can't justify it.
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: Recently,
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: I heard someone say that every morning we choose where our attention goes,
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: towards our point of pain or towards our point of power.
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: I liked the idea.
- 2:29SPEAKER_00: It made me think about how easily we can become absorbed in what has gone wrong,
- 2:34SPEAKER_00: especially when there's nothing more we can do to change it.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: But my mornings don't work quite like that.
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: Most days, I wake up with a little of both.
- 2:42SPEAKER_00: I can still be angry about what happened and excited about something I want to do.
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: I can worry about the future while looking forward to tomorrow.
- 2:51SPEAKER_00: I can wish things had turned out differently without wanting
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: to spend every day wishing I could go back.
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I assumed that feeling better would come after finding answers.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: Once the situation improved,
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: once I knew what came next, once I could look back and make sense of it all.
- 3:08SPEAKER_00: But lately, I've been noticing something I hadn't expected.
- 3:12SPEAKER_00: My interest in the future has returned before the uncertainty about it has disappeared.
- 3:17SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this matters because so many of us are accustomed to waiting.
- 3:21SPEAKER_00: Waiting until we're more confident.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: Until we have enough time.
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: Until the children are older,
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: the finances feel safer,
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: the relationship becomes clearer, or work is less demanding.
- 3:32SPEAKER_00: Waiting until we can explain why something is worth doing.
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with being sensible.
- 3:38SPEAKER_00: Some decisions require patience and careful consideration,
- 3:41SPEAKER_00: especially when other people depend on us.
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to reach a point where every new interest has to prove its value
- 3:48SPEAKER_00: before I allow myself to explore it.
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: Some things might become meaningful projects.
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: Others might simply teach us something about ourselves.
- 3:56SPEAKER_00: And a few might turn out to be things we enjoy for a while before moving on.
- 4:00SPEAKER_00: Surely there's room for those experiences too.
- 4:03SPEAKER_00: I don't know what will come of the things I'm working on at the moment.
- 4:06SPEAKER_00: I'm still learning, changing my mind, making mistakes, and figuring things out as I go.
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: And I still have plenty of practical problems to solve.
- 4:15SPEAKER_00: But I no longer want to treat the excitement I feel about creating
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: as something I should put aside until everything else is sorted.
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: If there's something you've been wanting to explore,
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: even quietly,
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll give yourself the chance to become a little more interested in it.
- 4:30SPEAKER_00: You can begin with whatever space you have, alongside everything else you're managing.
- 4:35SPEAKER_00: The difficult parts are still there.
- 4:37SPEAKER_00: They're just no longer the only things I wake up thinking about.
- 4:40SPEAKER_00: Just Julia.