If I may say something so bold I’d like to tell you, I love to work. I love to work because writing and making art and teaching is my job and I love these three things more than life itself. I love my job and it is the ultimate gift to do it, even on the days it feels somewhat impossible to sit down and do the work at hand.

In the same beam of light of pleasure is the pleasure of learning. This is why I went back to school, why I take classes up the road from my house, why I sign up for the things my friends organize and teach. It is of great pleasure to me to learn new skills, new ways of existing, new ways of showing up to the task of aliveness.

I find it all so innately pleasurable that it sometimes stops me from being in right relationship with myself and other people. It would be why I wrote the book How to Not Always be Working, to create systems for checking in with myself about when it is time to put the work down and when it is time to pick the work back up. But as one might guess just because you write a book about something doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it. Everything is a spiral and the lessons continue.