Hello and welcome to year seven of “The List.”
If you’re new here, this is kind of my thing. Every January, I look back on the previous year and turn it into a list of things I learned.
Actually, The List is what inspired me to start this newsletter, and they both follow the same basic premise. It’s me, talking about the mistakes I’ve made and the things I’ve learned, and sharing what I suspect will resonate. Nothing feels better than when it does.
This tradition - The List - has given my life shape for the better part of a decade. Out of necessity, it’s made me more diligent about cataloging and reflecting on my experiences, which would be a worthwhile end in and of itself. But this practice has also made me a more brave writer and person. Thank you, so much, for reading.
1
Unlearning a lifelong habit of people-pleasing means learning to sit through the discomfort of displeasing people. It means learning to accept that falling short of people’s expectations is an unavoidable part of life and not necessarily a bad one — depending on the person and the expectation, of course.
Maybe this seems obvious, but it was an epiphany for me. I’ll never forget that moment; feeling the shame of letting someone down, transform into the triumph of deciding that I was perfectly okay with that outcome.
Sometimes the bigger win is learning to celebrate a loss.
2
On discomfort more broadly: There’s a difference between protecting your peace and protecting your comfort zone. Feeling scared and uncomfortable but doing it anyway is how we grow.
3
Get your pants tailored. You do not have to resign yourself to baggy-assed “good enough” while you search for the perfect fit. You can take matters into your own hands, and by that, I mean a tailor’s hands.
So many good and worthwhile things in life are waiting on the other side of a slightly tedious effort.
Thank you Helen Torney for the tailor rec.
4
It’s good to know what you want, but be careful not to become so single-minded that you shut out the possibility of being surprised.
I spent the last two years freelancing and telling everyone that I would never take a full-time job again. I thought I knew what I wanted, but I was wrong! I took a full-time job and it’s one of the best things that has happened to me in a long time.
Life is full of surprises and so are you. Wouldn’t it be a shame to leave them undiscovered?
5
Hard goodbyes mean you’re doing something right.
6
A drill and a DIY attitude do not a handyman make. Don’t let your desire for self-sufficiency cloud your judgment, Sarah.
7
Worrying about something constantly will not prevent it from happening or cause it to happen. That hypervigilance is doing nothing to protect you, which is actually a good thing because it means you can stop.
We aren’t supposed to live this way. I wish I had known that sooner, but I’m happy to know it now.
Thank you to my therapist.
8
Invest in the thing that lights you up, whatever it is for you. Find spaces to share and practice; go toward the people who inspire and challenge you. You don’t have to know where it will lead, just take the first step. For me, that was starting this newsletter.
Thank you, Kelley O’Hare and Sophia June.
9
It’s cool to care.
There will always be people scoffing in the corner because they’re too afraid to be seen caring. The irony is, those people care a lot too, and about the saddest thing of all: the opinions of other people who are too scared to care.
Don’t let stylish apathy peddlers wash the lifeblood from your veins. Do your thing, baby.
10
Everyone is baby sometimes.
11
Mess is part of life, but especially work. Every job comes with at least some friction and frustration. In this woman’s opinion, the secret is figuring out what kind of mess you can tolerate, and what kind of mess you genuinely enjoy cleaning up.
12
You should have Gatorade in the house before it’s too late, “too late” being any situation in which you need Gatorade.
13
Hear me out: Jealousy deserves a rebrand. Though we love to say, “They’re just jealous,” to explain away bad behavior or shirk responsibility for our own, jealousy doesn’t have to be mean or destructive.
If you treat jealousy with curiosity and compassion it will show you your deepest wants and unmet needs. Even the hard feelings are productive if you listen.
14
I used to think I lacked discipline. What I actually lack is patience.
If you want to get better at something, you have to let yourself get better at something. You can’t set goals at 1 am like, “Become a morning person, tomorrow.” Give yourself permission to improve the only way humans can, which is by degrees.
15
I spent a lot of 2023 talking about, of all things, my dishes — how much I hate to do them, how desperately I want a dishwasher, and how anxious I feel watching plates stack up in my sink.
I thought I was lazy or burnt out but actually, I was lonely. I was talking about loneliness the whole time. The kind that presents itself in the slow, mindless task of hand-washing dishes by yourself in a quiet apartment, after a long day of doing everything else by yourself, too.
It turns out that loneliness can take many shapes. It can hide inside something unassuming and sneak up on you, quietly accumulating while you go through the motions of life.
Don’t let the mirage of loneliness keep you from the solution. I know it’s exhausting and vulnerable, but you need to pick up the phone and tell someone how you really feel. Better yet, leave the house and tell someone over dinner (no dishes).
Thank you to my girls.
16
One more note on loneliness. Everyone feels it sometimes — the most social person you know, your friend who is madly in love, the woman who waxes poetic about her friends in a deeply sentimental, monthly newsletter.
Loneliness is not a failure. It doesn’t make you needy or prove that you are undeserving of the connection and understanding you crave. It’s the opposite. To feel lonely is proof of our humanity and of how much we have to give. You are not lacking of love, you are full of it.
17
You are not above the cultish workout class. Whatever gets you there.*
*out of your head and into your body.
18
It does not matter what the forecast says. Get the rental car with four-wheel drive.
19
Don’t judge yourself by, or on, your worst days. Everyone has them, it’s not that deep, go to bed.
20
Not everyone is equipped with the empathy and nuance to hear about your dating life. You are not obligated to share just because people ask and you do not have to entertain advice you didn’t ask for. However! Understand that if you do share, people are generally unable to stop themselves from giving advice.
21
As the proverb and also the TikTok girls say: Let go or be dragged.
22
In a world as comparative and competitive as ours, one where we voluntarily share our lives as if they’re advertisements, it’s easy to get caught up in the cycle of longing. Always looking forward, always asking for more. Always imagining how shiny life will be on the other side of the next milestone. And the next, and the next, and the next.
Time slips through our fingers all the while. Don’t let longing keep you from living the life you already have.
23
People love you exactly as you are, right now. They’re going to love you tomorrow, too. And there are more people in the world who will love you — people you haven’t even met yet. All of this is true, even if the things you fear about yourself are true.
Everything and everyone is a work in progress. Ignore the voice that makes you wonder if you deserve the love you have. Of course you do. Besides, you’ve already got it. Drive it like it’s stolen.
xx,
Sarah
So many faves in 23 pieces. Bravo Sarah! Loved reading this.
Loved this. Thanks for sharing :)