Just a Small Town Girl
USER SUBMISSION:
"We recently got a message we can’t stop thinking about. Its the profundity and deep, probing question that got us thinking about the idea of success.. as a form of self-sabotage." – Cat the Therapist
Here’s what was said:
"I seriously wish I was just a small town girl who got married in college and had a baby one year after graduating and I live on a farm with horses and chickens.. like why do I have the urge to create sh*t and complicate my whole life?” – User Submission
CAT’S RESPONSE:
It’s mid-January. By now, your New Year’s resolutions have turned to dust. You’re wondering, why do I have the urge to create sh*t and complicate my whole life?
As your 24helps therapist, I’m here to tell you why you may be doing this, and what to do about it.
As humans, we all suffer from the drive for more. We can’t be satisfied. It’s by design, isn’t it? The digital overlords running the simulation know that if they allow us the experience of being satisfied, we might just stop moving forward.
Don’t be fooled by that small town girl. She has that same drive. First she just had chickens, but she insisted on getting horses. She was just growing corn, but she demanded a pumpkin patch. Isn’t having a baby the ultimate create sh*t and complicate your whole lifesetup?
However, it seems that our reader was referring specifically to the grinding cosmopolitan life that I, and many of our 24helps community members lead. So, what’s the appeal of the small town girl’s life? Sure. Maybe there’s less striving, but I don’t think less striving is the only thing we’re yearning for when we city folk fantasize about picking up, moving to a farm, and having some kids.
In my imagination, that small town girl has a husband she can rely on. She probably lives in a community where neighbors pick up each other’s kids from school, see each other every Sunday at church, and organize a meal train when a community member falls ill. When the small town girl had her baby, her mother and brother-in-law came over to help out around the farm. They just live down the road. And maybe she doesn’t have to work 60 hours a week to afford a fourth floor walkup in Queens and therapy.
I considered myself almost miraculously fortunate when I sprained my ankle a few months ago. Two of my dearest friends live a five minute walk away from my fourth floor walkup in Queens, and they keep a set of keys to my apartment for occasions just like this. They brought me a set of crutches and let in the wonderful guy I had started dating two weeks earlier, who picked up groceries and epsom salt for me. For a moment, I felt like that small town girl: surrounded by love, community, and support.
So when I hear my fellow city folk creating sh*t and complicating their whole lives, I hear someone singing a different tune than that small town girl who wanted more chickens.
I hear someone saying that something is missing, and they’re going to strive to fulfill it. They’re going to strive for money, recognition, power, and popularity. At least there’s a road map for those things: get a better job, go back to school, get your work into that gallery or that publication, go to the best parties. Throw it at the wall until it sticks.
Don’t get me wrong. Small town girl probably had problems too. Maybe there’s poverty and addiction in her community? Maybe there’s boredom (hence, chickens)? Maybe the memo about gender equality is still years from reaching her part of the country.. maybe if you’re not white and American and heteronormative and cisgender and devoutly Christian you can’t live in her community? But the imaginary small town girl with the community, and the family, and the love, is the fantasy I’m focusing on here.
Why are you creating sh*t and complicating your whole life? Well, probably because your very human needs for community, belonging, and support are extremely unfulfilled. Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong thing. So put down that MFA application, and call a friend. Call your mom. Date the schoolteacher, not the finance bro. Give your neighbor a key to your place. Stop striving so much and connect.
Creating sh*t in the way of work, grad programs, and entrepreneurial ventures has a place. But try to recognize when you’re sublimating your human needs into capitalistic nonsense.
Get right with yourself about what success really is.
Find it, right where you are.
– Cat, a Therapist With an Advice Column
This was a response to a user submission.
If you have concerns, we probably have them too.
THANK GOD FOR OUR IN HOUSE THERAPIST.