For as long as I can remember, I’ve been sure of my path. Each year, I’ve thought, this is what I’m meant to do. And each year has found me doing something different.
By ninth grade, I’d picked my future college: Berklee College of Music in Boston. I’d never visited, but I loved Boston. My future as a musician was a forgone conclusion. Eager to make sure everything was perfect by senior year, I printed the entire application right then and there.
Sounds very un-ADHD — that is, if I’d ended up going to Boston, or going to school for music. I did neither. As tightly as I’d latched onto that specific idea — going to Berklee and majoring in music performance — I got derailed. Someone I respected and trusted told me something I hadn’t considered: music majors practice a lot. Over eight hours per day, he said. I’d have to give up almost everything else.
Everything else: Writing, art, photography, reading, publishing my zine. The idea of turning my back on those many passions — even in service to my greatest one, which I’d used as a lifeline throughout my adolescence — spooked me.
So began a long succession of college majors. I spread my undergraduate career over four majors and two universities.
Ability, interest, and time intersect
I used to think I could do anything. That I hadn’t and wasn’t — well, it gnawed at me. I envisioned my 30-something self as someone who’d earned two PhDs, hiked the Inca Trail, and learned to speak seven languages. While many of my peers honed and narrowed their passions throughout their teens and 20s, I wondered how anyone could settle down with just one life path. The world was too interesting for that.
I’ve changed gears and started over a lot. I’ve been accepted into undergraduate programs in psychology, education, and fine arts, and graduate programs in business and community art. I regret not studying neuroscience, physics, creative writing, or music performance in college. My favorite class senior year was Geology. My favorite class freshman year was Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peacemaking. I’ve held — and loved — jobs in a cabinetry shop, print shop, IT support desk, and community-based non-profit. My strongest natural talent is playing the flute.
I believed I was smart enough to get a PhD in anything. I had it in me to be a successful entrepreneur, I had the potential to write the next Tony Award-winning musical, and my latest blog project was sure to go viral. The only thing holding me back was time: how would I find time to do it all?
As I neared my 30th birthday, I faced a sudden fear that time was running out. I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. I asked myself, when have I ever focused on one thing for long enough to accumulate 10,000 hours of practice? Eventually, I realized that through all of this, I’ve always been a writer. Before I could use a pen, I’d sit next to my mother and dictate stories to her while she copied my words into construction-paper books.
Not all that shines is worthy
Over the past few years, I’ve pondered my identity and my long-term goals. I’ve realized, finally, that if I want to be successful at anything, I have to learn to let go. I have to let go of my dreams of being a famous musician, a Supreme Court Justice, and a neuroscience researcher. As I failed to do all those years ago, I need to pare my life down and make time for my craft — and I have to keep that craft the same, year after year.
It hasn’t been easy. I’ve been working on the same novel draft since 2009. I’ve gotten tired of it and wanted to quit so many times, I have no idea how it’s gotten this far. Likewise with this blog. I’ve come up with 1001 justifications for retiring it and moving on.
I don’t know how I’ve kept it up. I’ve never stuck with anything for this long. All I can say is, it started to feel good. I pitched my manuscript to agents last August and got wonderful feedback. Now a few are waiting on the full, revised manuscript. People have written me from all over to tell me how much they appreciate my blog, and how much my writing has helped them. To quit now would be to let a lot of people down, not least of all myself.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been a letdown before — plenty of times. But it takes on a different meaning as I get older. The questions at parties and holiday dinners twist my heart a little more. I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, and I’m beginning to grasp the consequences of starting over every few years. And so I’ve resolved to let most of it go: all the careers that could’ve been.
Yoking to a path: the anti-ADHD
My 30s have been about choosing a path — one path — and tilling that soil for multiple seasons. Our identities are shaped by the work we do each day. That work is like a marriage: something I choose daily, deliberately, and continue to choose throughout my life. It’s not something that sweeps me off my feet on a weekly basis, nor is it something that should change with everything new and shiny. It requires work, intention, dedication. It’s not always fun or exhilarating, but in the end, it’s deeply rewarding. It’s where I’ve chosen to belong.
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I fight back tears reading this. I came to this exact conclusion as I sat down New Years Eve to formulate my goals for 2017, just weeks after I received my ADHD diagnosis. I am sadly resigned to give up my dream of being “a photographer” despite my enormous “potential.” At 46, I have to realize where my energies are best focused after exhausting myself with my impulsive decisions and anxiety over poor executive functioning for decades. I could have written this. Thank you for getting me off the hook on having to fail at that too lol 😉 I will still take photographs, just not as a career. I also plan to finally start writing posts for the blog I started in 2011, which still remains empty.
Glad it struck a chord with you! I wasn’t sure about posting this because I thought it had less practical purpose than most of what I write here. As I reflect on it, though, I wonder if it doesn’t have more — this is the perspective that is (slowly) giving me more time to do what I want to do.
Letting the tears flow here. I have just started trying to let go of my career ‘what ifs’. Found your website in the last few weeks and have devoured most of the posts. Sending the ones that really hit a nerve to my husband. I have never heard someone describe so well some of the daily difficulties I have experienced. I have jokingly called you ‘my new best friend’. Thank you so much for writing this blog. My daughter was recently diagnosed with ADHD and it started my research into what that looks like as a woman. After 35 years of feeling a bit different I finally have the confidence to seek some help (for a variety of reasons I have not done this previously) and I am about to head to an appt to talk to someone. I am so proud and excited. I have to think it’s related, there has been such a weight lifted from my chest and my husband has said this last week our family has felt completely different, relaxed and happier. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This warms my heart! Diagnosis and treatment certainly don’t make life with ADHD easy, but I think putting a name to that “different” feeling makes it seem manageable — and that can make all the difference in the world.
I’m so glad to hear this blog has helped you on your journey. That’s what keeps me writing!
Wow, this post brought to mind two thoughts:
Firstly, even though you still have the aspirational dream to be a musician, that doesn’t detract from all of your successes, which considering your ADHD, are incredible, especially when you think of the amount of organising, scheduling, time keeping, focus, etc, etc, etc, it requires. Plus who said you can’t do a PhD in music at some point because you are still young enough, and how nice to study for pleasure instead of necessity, which brings me to my second thought…
Time does start to run out (time blindness totally snuck up on me here!). I have lots of things I’d love to do (mainly travel) that are now unlikely to happen simply because, realistically, I’m don’t have sufficient time to acquire the money and fitness needed to do them. My diagnosis came later in life at 56, and after my mental health had impacted my ability to work and my general wellbeing. So before I can even plan to travel I need to become well again.
Your website is certainly helping me to unravel what has been going on for me throughout my life, which all helps in becoming well. Your comments about not sticking with things and the comments below made me smile because it took me a long time to realise that I like the idea of doing some things more than actually doing them. Of course, that came after I’d spent a lot of money (and time) on cameras and photography classes, art materials and classes, etc – you get the idea. That was all pre-diagnosis and pre-meds and since then I’ve found Pinterest where I can collect thoughts and ideas to my heart’s delight without spending a cent! It’s still a time waster, but small steps…!
Thank you for your comments, Toni! And yes, I am a fellow Pinterest addict 😉 I have to be careful how much time I spend there, but it does help to be able to squirrel away my ideas for “later,” rather than letting them disappear outright.