While reading Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, I stopped in the middle of chapter three with a knot in my throat and pressure behind my eyes. Why am I not writing? What’s holding me back? Why care about whether I have anything worthwhile to say? What am I afraid of? Just let go of my inhibitions and write…regardless of who I think my audience might be. Who cares?

Whenever I think about who I admire, one of the first “person” I think about is a dog named Yaki. She’s facing me right now, sort of. Her eyes are glazed over and I think she’s half asleep. She definitely doesn’t give a shit about anything or anyone right now. She knows no tomorrow and lives everyday with authenticity. She greets people enthusiastically and loves unconditionally. Her personality is consistently pure and uninhibited. I’m not sure if all of her characteristics would transpire the same in humans, but I find her so worthy of love.

It’s a leisure Monday for me and I have the pleasure of doing whatever my heart desires. This self-imposed “freedom” happened when I decided in mid-September to quit my job. Somewhere, I have a long list of reasons to justify my decision at the time but I don’t care to recount nor relive any of them. What matters to me now is that I’ve created this time and space for myself to do whatever I want. I have my health. I have food and shelter. I have the support of my loved ones. So I should do some incredibly amazing stuff, right? That seems to be the expectation. “Imagine what you could do if you had all the time in the world.” This statement doesn’t seem challenging at all when it’s in the imagination. I don’t have to imagine that anymore and sometimes it feels like pressure. When time is readily available, there’s an unspoken expectation that it should be used wisely, productively and purposefully. If not, it’s a damn shame.

Well, I want to be shameless right now. I want to embrace my own vulnerability and let go of all the expectations – from friends, family, myself, society. I want to discover my drivers…and I’m not talking about the big stick in my golf bag! I want to resist the urge to compare myself to others, to desire meaningless things, to be curious about the things and people that aren’t truly connected to me. Basically all the stuff that streams through Facebook. I need to rethink what it means to live and how to share my life in meaningful ways.

On the day of the dead, I happen to feel more alive…an accidental irony!