I started writing this newsletter last week. I intended to write about institutions that are no longer trustworthy, and maybe never were. I also planned to unpack how industries upended by technology still pretend to hold the key to The Matrix, and that their survival relies on us continuing to believe this story. I was going to write about just…not buying it. Like plastering ourselves with luxury brands, none of it guarantees us a better life. None of it protects us from a worse one. All of it is an illusion.
All around us are traditional methods of doing and being that no longer live up to their original promises. They’re rooted in orthodoxies—long-held beliefs that have been around for so long, we stopped questioning them. And not because they work for us, but because they’re so deeply ingrained in our thinking, our behaviors, our choices, our relationships, our priorities, our bank accounts…our lives.
This applies to so many systems and structures that to list them would feel indiscriminate, but they include government, higher education, media, and religion. I’m not suggesting these societal fixtures have no meaning at all. I’m saying they claim exclusive rights to things they don’t unilaterally own, like safety, learning, growth, validation. And yes, salvation. Look around. No one has all the answers. Everyone is winging it. Accepting that the “right way” to do just about anything isn’t real can make us less fearful. More creative and brave. It can bring us back to our intuition.
Certain institutions are getting major side eye from me right now because the proof and the pudding don’t match. I’ve begun asking myself questions like:
Do I even need what they’re offering?
What can they give me that I can’t get myself?
What can they show me that I can’t imagine or create?
What can they build for me that I can’t make in collaboration with others who share my values?
In a climate where much of what we once considered permanent is being uprooted and perverted, the proverbial pieces of paper, affiliations, sanctioning, and protection that long-standing structures once provided carry less meaning by the day. The veil has been lifted, and as social media influencer Dr. ShantaQuilette DeVelle said in a viral post my friend Leilani Brown shared with me, I don’t want to “split the check.” I understand “splitting the check” as sharing the fruit of trees you painstakingly planted with people who never stepped foot in the garden.
“Don’t split the check” as a lesson in self-trust and preservation resonates strongly with me right now because there’s a lot I aim to keep. My creative ideas. My hope. My sanity.
I’m keeping this and more by making strategic investments in things and people I believe in. By collaborating with others who care about what I care about. By supporting my team. By consuming less media. By removing myself from any context in which I’m not seen as or treated as an equal. And most powerfully, by practicing gratitude.
I’m doing what I can—where I can—to cultivate environments worthy of our best effort, our good energy, and our full commitment.
But I’m also letting go—of my need to be understood or agreed with or invited or credited. The amount of energy I’ve saved with this one intentional shift has been mind-blowing. We don’t realize how much of our life force we squander when we perform for likes—both online and off.
As I check in with myself today, I know that what I’m doing isn’t everything we need. It’s also not everything I can do, but it’s as much as I want to do, which is still a lot. THIS is my new bar.
No one gets everything anymore. I refuse to come up empty. I refuse to do until I’m undone. I refuse to give myself away. It is, without question, the most important thing I aim to keep.
Join me.
Tara Jaye Frank
Photo courtesy of two of our six children and me.