Sometimes I pop a question up on my Instagram stories because I want a temperature check — How are people feeling? Where are you in life? What movies are you watching? Is ketchup the worst condiment, yes or definitely yes?
This weekend I asked, If you could do anything in the world right now (that’s realistic), who would you be? What would you do?
Wow, did I get answers!
Interestingly, the responses fell into three categories: Career, Impact, Life, and Health
Now, certainly, John Della Volpe will tell you that this is in no way accurate polling. My readers — or those most likely to have answered — demonstrate certain commonalities that inform their responses:
They’re all women (save for one or two), they are not independently wealthy, they are in their 30s and beyond, they have older children or no children, they are overall liberal in their beliefs, and they are creatively minded.
Here are some of the responses, lightly edited for clarity:
Career
Be an elementary school librarian again
Be a background singer on stage at Wembley stadium
Write a screenplay.
Be an investigative journalist
Sportswriter
Public health worker for UNICEF
Personal shopper for fashion and gifts
I would speak about mental health struggles to kids
Afford to go part-time at my job to have a better work/life balance
Quit my job and move to Europe. Or just move to Europe; I can still work
Make a living that allows me to save for retirement and stop being sick with financial worry
Have freelance work booked through April
I would stop and write my book instead of just saying I’m going to write it.
Write a bestselling novel. Anonymously, if possible.
Work my current job but for sustainable pay
Impact
Ban assault rifles
Get Harris in office. Ban assault rifles.
Feed all the hungry people
Crush the patriarchy
Stop children from experiencing violence. All of us, really, but they’re my priority.
Gun reform in US, weapon reform worldwide
Make sure we elect the right person for President. I’m a nervous wreck about it.
Repeal the second amendment
Find and destroy ALL the damn guns
Make sure Trump loses
Life and Health
Get a solid 9 hours of sleep without stressful and/or bizarre dreams and wake up well-rested
Go on a vacation with a beach for snorkeling, a pool for floating and sipping
Go to the beach at sunset and walk and look for shells and flotsam and breathe salty air.
Check out for a day. See a movie in the theater. Eat a good meal. Alone.
Live in Wales on the coast
Sit on a beach and somehow also make a living
Hang out with my daughter and granddaughters
I would ease my parents’ suffering. They are both at the end of life and I really can’t help them.
Phew.
My non-statistically sound conclusions:
Women are tired.
Women are underpaid.
Women are living through times of inordinate stress due to factors we can’t entirely control.
Women are good people who want to do good for the world.
If women can fulfill many of our greatest dreams, others will benefit.
Soon after posting my question, I happened to come across this quote in my Instagram feed from Cleo Wade.
Sometimes the universe just hands you something you need to see, you know?
(Or maybe it’s the Instagram algorithm, fine. Bust my metaphysical bubble will you.)
While hers isn’t a brand new thought, something about the way she phrased it and presented it has stayed with me.
Not all of the things we imagine for ourselves are in our hands — healing sick family members, free plane tickets to Europe, a million in the bank.
But some things are in our hands, right?
I am at a time in my life when I also feel a lot of things are out of my control. This is Virgo kryptonite, by the way. It sucks feeling like you can’t bend the universe to your will. But it’s a far worse feeling to imagine that you missed an opportunity or that it’s too late for you to do something.
I have always said that doing something makes me feel better than doing nothing.
So…
Can we do something?
Try this exercise:
Write down one single thing you can do right now to get you closer to the thing you most want to do/be/achieve.
Start the first page of that novel?
Cut out one $5 expense each week and put it into a dedicated “beach vacation fund”?
Choose something from the Moms Demand “Take Action” page?
Allow yourself an entire 120 seconds to simply do nothing in the middle of the day?
If you are up for it, please share what you wish you could do — and maybe, one thing you can do (or are doing) to make it happen. I know it will motivate me. I bet it will motivate others too.
Liz Gumbinner is a Brooklyn-based writer, award-winning ad agency creative director, and OG mom blogger who was called “funny some of the time” by an enthusiastic anonymous commenter. This was originally posted on her Substack “I’m Walking Here!,” where she covers culture, media, politics, and parenting.
Header image by Daniel Farò, Death to Stock