Because a bifurcated life sucks.
I’ve spoken often about a bifurcated wardrobe, how it makes you feel disjointed when you’ve separated the daily moments of your life - you never feel quite whole. When you’re visually one person from 9-6, another at night, another on the weekend it can mess with the understanding of who you are. Turns out this mindset applies to how you view your life.
This is what I mean.
My dad’s always said: “You can have it all, you just can’t have it all at one time.” And I think that’s a huge truism. HOWEVER, there’s a more nuanced (complicated) layer to the statement. Sometimes an analogy is the best way to get a point across, so I’ll put it in cooking and dining terms. Ignore that this comes from someone who neither cooks nor eats a proper meal at home, indulge me for a moment.
You’re cooking a great dinner. Everything’s planned out, the ingredients are all natural and sourced from all over the world. You’ve really come to appreciate, in taste and health, the richness of a true Italian tomato. The recipes are tried and true. The wine pairings are perfection, and the table setting is incredibly special. Those plates you picked up in random places on your travels, maybe even the one created by your son in his 8th grade pottery class, make this table really feel like you.
Everyone sits down, and the meal is served. It’s not just beautiful, it tastes great.You have it ALL. ALL, at once.
BUT, this didn’t happen overnight. The time spent……. trialing those recipes, that was great and often hilarious. The fish dish mistaken as tofu due to no hint of flavor, the pie crust that didn’t work because you’d mistaken powdered sugar for flour. You and your friends ate it anway, as long as the drinks were strong it could be stomached. Each plate you acquired over time has a memory tucked behind it - that hot day in the Texas flea market or the one smuggled from your grandmother’s home. Learning about the differences in olive oils, seed oils. Trying to care about natural ingredients but loving a good tube of Pringles all the same. And finally developing a palette that doesn’t just pretend to know the difference between a robust French Bordeaux and a bottle of “Two Buck Chuck’s” finest. And knowing for you that sometimes the best lunch comes from a quick gas fill up at Buc-ee’s.
If you are waiting for the table to be set perfectly and the meal to be excellent so that you will finally be…(Satisfied? Happy? Have made “it”) you’ll miss all the incredible experiences in getting there. And if you don’t experience each one of these elements yourself, then inevitably what’s served up to you may not be so satisfying after all.
My Dad is right, in the literal sense. In Almost Reckless, I help people create their own definition of what “all” means to you. Recognizing that this is your life you’re living every day, can really alter your mindset. In a good way.
Ok, remember those preorders are so critical. And the more I learn about the industry, I’m understanding it’s like back in the day when I used to produce clothing based on a multiplier of how many units a store bought up front. Penguin basically needs to know how many to print. The book execs aren’t like Traci and I with our designs, where we get to just yell out “yes, we will wear the hell out of this, let’s go big with 150 pieces and then Karolina has to put in the order even if she’s shaking her head at us not yet fully committed. Fyi, 150 is a big number when you’re an independent brand and don’t sell to department stores. The more you know….
So please, if you think you’ll love the book, I’d be so grateful if you would preorder here:
NOTE: I’ve been told that all of these links are a magic portal that let you buy the book even at your local store from Barcelona to Perth.
Preordered! Can’t wait till March! I have The Creative Pragmatist book and I already know this one’s gonna be exceptional as well