I've always had a hard time taking vacations. I always worry I haven't done enough. That I'm losing time on completing the Great Work, on making my mark on the world.

This week, I'm sharing advice from the NY Times column Cultural Therapist, where the writer answered a reader's question about whether it's too late in life to begin a creative endeavor. And the columnist's advice was that the source of creativity is worrying less about time, and wasting it as though you were young and did not know it would ever run out.

Such a neat trick, for making art, and for living.

And I realized in recording this episode that I cherish weekends and their unstructured time, because that's often when I'm most restless to create. To write a script or work on a song or dig into acting prep. There's something about the boredom of having space and time that brings forth that deep need to create.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to apply that same freedom to the larger question of my life, of the span of my career. How do I remove the pressure to be known, to be seen, to be important? 

If you have answers, please do come share them. I'm on Instagram @SamGarlandNYC.



Can I Hold Out Hope That My Best Creative Years Are Still to Come?
~ Ligaya Mishan writing for The New York Times on August 9, 2021



(photo credit: Janae Jones Photography) 

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋