After my layoff swept my table of proof clean, I had to rebuild my creative life from scratch. Here are three practices helping me create without equating my worth with output—lessons about capacity, imperfection, and learning to trust my seasons.

We’ve been taught to chase a dream life always out of reach—moving the goalpost, climbing the ladder, never quite arriving. But what if the real trap isn’t that we’re behind, but that we’ve bought into the promise itself? In this essay, I explore how to step off the treadmill of striving and name the ordinary moments—coffee in your pajamas, tending the garden—as the dream life already unfolding. With a simple practice I call the Enough Audit, you’ll learn how to notice, honor, and nurture what’s here right now.