it's me versus me.

can life be both meaningful and stable?

Nov 08, 2022

Hi. I’m Katie. This newsletter is a place where I explore my spirituality and my humanity in an intersectional way. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week…

Last week, I was lying in bed. A fan spun lazily overhead. Outside, chickens clucked and scratched through the dirt. I had nothing to do, so I decided to do more of that. I engaged in my current coping mechanism of choice: watching TikTok videos on Facebook1.

I watched video after video, immediately swiping from one to the next. I watched a woman pack a lunch for her husband. I watched a man record everything he ate for a day, complete with closeups of him chomping his food.

I kept going. At some point, things got weird: I ended up on Disney TikTok (never been) and POV TikTok, where teenagers play act mini stories about having dystopian-worthy special powers.

I needed a break. A palate cleanser of sorts. I sighed and returned to Regular Facebook, hoping to see something that would reactive my mushy brain cells. I guess the universe (or the algorithm) heard me because, moments later, I landed on this article from NPR. Ah, public radio, I thought to myself. This should be intellectual.

The clickbaity headline had me from the get-go: THIS 15-MINUTE STICK FIGURE EXERCISE CAN HELP YOU FIND YOUR PURPOSE!

The woo-curious woman in me was immediately piqued: purpose? In fifteen minutes or less? Stick figures?! It felt like equal parts car insurance commercial, an episode of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, and those aggressive ads that pop up on the side of your screen screaming about “one weird trick doctors hate.”

Needless to say, I was in.

Obviously, you can read the article yourself, but let me sum it up. The author, who is in her late 20s, felt burnt out and dissatisfied with the life she was living. According to psychologist and author Satya Doyle Byock, this is completely normal and the result of competing desires. She describes it as a “tug-of-war” between meaning and stability.

Yes, I thought to myself, cradling my phone in my hand like it was some ancient oracle, spouting invaluable advice. That’s exactly how I feel.

After all, I was lying in a bed located on a tropical island. One where the power goes out a couple of times a month. One where I couldn’t find my favorite face cleanser and where it really isn’t the best idea to drink the tap water. One that was miles and miles away from the stable, sure life I had always known.

When it comes to a life of stability versus meaning, for the time being, I had clearly chosen the latter.

So why was it so hard for me to get out and actually live it?

If you were a girl, grew up in the ‘90s, and had access to a public library, you probably remember the Sweet Valley Twins series.

As a self-proclaimed Avid Reader, I certainly do—I was enchanted by the idea of these blonde-haired, blue-eyed twins who came from California, a state I had never visited.

The little teaser on the front of this book sums up 99.9% of the conflicts in every single book in the series.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with such a pillar of the literary community, the Sweet Valley series followed Elizabeth and Jessica, who were identical twins (a detail that was repeatedly emphasized, almost as often as the color of their eyes and hair). But even though they were carbon copies on the outside, their personalities were so different.2

Elizabeth was the stable, intellectual twin. She was on the school newspaper, wore her hair in a headband and probably flossed twice a day. Jessica was the carefree, chaotic twin. She wore purple, belonged to an exclusive club called the Unicorns, and brought home Cs.

Every single book hinged on this difference. Every conflict centered around the tension between Elizabeth’s bent towards what felt safe and Jessica’s thirst for adventure.

Rarely did the two agree on, well, anything. Sometimes, they learned from each other (Elizabeth taught Jessica how to ace a math test; Jessica let Elizabeth borrow her sparkly sweaters), but overall, the books emphasized a subtle lesson that we millennials were taught: you’ve gotta pick.

You’re either this…or that. Stable or meaningful. Not both.

I thought about the Wakefield twins as I read the rest of the NPR article, which walked me through a simple exercise that had me scrounging for a pen. According to Doyle Byock, an effective way to explore the dueling selves of stability and meaning is to give them names, personalities, and to, yes, draw them.

Before I show you my Two Selves, I need you to know a few things:

I like to draw.
I am not particularly good at drawing.
I struggle with proportions, so stick figure me has a very large head.

I started with the Stable Me because she feels a little more familiar. I named her Katie because, well, that’s who I’ve been my whole life.

Apparently, Stable Katie dresses like an accountant, complete with pleated slacks (????)

Katie loves to be comfortable. She loves going to Target and having 32 different face cleansers to pick from. She has a steady, practical job in education, and she’s planning for her retirement.

She values marriage, home ownership, and routine. She does things for a purpose, not a feeling: yoga is for exercise, writing is for publication, travel is for seeing family.

Katie dreams a lot, though. She wonders what it would feel like to get on a plane and leave it all behind. She likes looking at the arch in St. Louis and imagining the feeling that would come along with parachuting off of it for no good reason. She loves to write, but she doesn’t have any time to do it—she’s too busy checking items off of her to-do list and filling her plate so full that there’s no room at all for dessert.

While I was drawing Katie, I felt a lot of tenderness for her. Her needs are valid. But I didn’t see a whole lot of myself in her anymore. Well, I thought. I guess this explains the whole identity crisis bit.

I turned to a new page and began to create my Meaning Persona.

Keeping with the “books I read as a kid” theme, I named her Claudia, after the coolest, quirkiest babysitter in the Babysitters Club books.

Ann M. Martin was not very subtle with her titles.

Claudia Kishi was an artist who wore mismatched, brightly colored clothes and her hair in a high ponytail pulled to the side. Her earrings were shaped like triangles and she left a trail of glitter, art projects and bad grades behind her wherever she went.

I wanted to be her. But I was more of a Mary Anne Spier. Sigh.

Anyway, meet Claudia.

Claudia is sitting on a yoga mat because meaning and spirituality are fundamental to who she is. She has plenty of time to write and focus on her tarot practice because that’s what she does for a living.

She lives in exotic locales, like tropical islands or distant lands, and she regularly travels: her backpack is a go bag, always ready for the next adventure.

She’s a renter for life—she can’t imagine staying somewhere long enough to buy a house (and to be honest, she’s not sure if she can afford it. Most of her money goes towards travel).

She loves her freedom, but she worries sometimes about the fact that she doesn’t have health insurance or a 401K. She tells herself to live in the moment, and one quick glance at the ocean or the mountains or whatever beautiful scenery she’s in front of at the time brings her right back to her biggest purpose: seeking love.

Creating Claudia felt more difficult.

I sort of didn’t believe that the life I was sketching was even possible for a long time, and as I drew, those old alarm bells began to sound. The what-abouts came out in full force, and even though I was using my imagination, a voice whispered in the back of my mind: people don’t really live like this.

Even though I am living a life that looks a lot like Claudia’s right now, I find it hard to believe that it is sustainable.

So, what’s the point of all of it?

After I finished my drawings, I thought, it’s been fifteen minutes. Where’s my purpose?! I felt no closer to finding it.

I wondered what the perfect equation was. Should I seek a life that’s 60% Claudia and 40% Katie? Is 50/50 better? What’s the golden ratio?

The article ends with the kind of vague, bullshitty advice that infuriates me because I know it’s true: figure out how to fulfill both sides of yourself.

There’s no perfect answer, and there’s no easy fix.

I know that I feel uncomfortable right now because I’ve leaned into a Claudia way of life, and because I’ve never let myself go there before, I feel scared. As someone very wise once told me, sometimes, you have to let the pendulum swing all the way in the opposite direction before you can find a place somewhere in the middle.

I’ve said many times before that I am seeking a sweet spot in life. That remains true when it comes to my dueling selves. I know there’s a version of life that makes space for the stability that Katie needs and the meaning that Claudia seeks.

But right now, I’m still refining the recipe.

I plan to honor Katie’s needs by vacuuming up all the cat hair every day and accepting a job that offers health insurance. I will nourish my inner Claudia by buying tickets to Belize for a wedding and getting lost in the rainforest every so often.

Because, truthfully, life isn’t this or that. I don’t believe we have to choose.

I think of these two dueling selves as lines in a musical score. At times, my stability is the melody: an easily recognizable pattern that pushes the composition forward. Meaning comes in to add nuance in the form of fortissimos and extended holds and interesting harmonies.

In other moments, they switch: meaning takes control, lending an experimental approach to the sound of the music I play, complete with moments of dissonance and runs of notes that skitter all over the scale. Stability offers a familiar key to the score, one that the ear immediately recognizes.

Both are beautiful. And both are true.

No need to choose. Now, I just need to believe that.

What’s your take on the meaning vs. stability narrative? Bonus points if you tell me what you’d name your two alter egos and why.

Everyday Woo

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