I could have quit but I didn't (on failing and showing up anyway)

How it's going: June 2025

Starry Night by Edvard Munsch - probably what the inside of my brain was meant to look like after a successful week of media deprivation.

Well, my week of media deprivation was a complete flop!

For 7 days, I was following the instructions in The Artist’s Way, which tells you not to read, watch, or engage with media, in order to give your true self a chance to emerge from under the noise. Or, well, I was meant to be following the instructions. I got to maybe 2 days of relative media deprivation before everything fell apart.

To my credit, it is—to use the technical term—bonkers over here right now.

We are days away from a massive trip (I will tell you more when we’ve arrived, insha Allah¹) and all the logistical chaos that that entails.

We’ve also had family arrivals into town, school graduations, out of town tournaments, other road trips, and every possible appointment you can imagine.

The thing with media deprivation is that it’s supposed to free you up to create. But I am not in a season of creating. I am mired right now. Absolutely mired in to-do lists. And those lists call for a little background noise: podcasts, songs, soothing Quran recitations, an old comfort watch running in the background.

I was self-flagellating in my morning pages (for missing morning pages, for failing at media deprivation, for not starting on an epic novel or taking up knitting or becoming an opera singer) and midway through I just… stopped.

I stopped because I realized that I’m allowed to be human. That I’m allowed to have ideals and aim for them and fail when I’m juggling other important things.

I could have quit, but I didn’t. Yay me!

And you know what? That is a win! Forgiving myself and continuing is a new trick— people just do this? The audacity!

Don’t stop at the poll! Tell me all about your June in the comments. Is everyone’s June chaotic?

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1. https://nohabeshir.substack.com/p/insha-allah-vs-masha-allah-a-guide