I spend more time feeling like I should be writing, than I actually do writing. Life feels richer when I’m able to be more introspective and think more deeply, but lately I’m becoming increasingly aware of how finite my energy is.

Lately life feels like endless toil. I wake up, try to read 4 chapters of scripture, rush through a prayer for myself and my family, get out the door and go for a run around the park, knead the knots out of my body afterwards, quickly chow down a bowl of oatmeal with some fruit, cycle through back-to-back meetings with colleagues, work on designs, try to squeeze in a quick lunch, if I manage to get to the end of the day in one piece, I run to catch a bus to the upper east side for a pilates class, run back home to try to make it for one last thing– writing or painting or reading before bed, and then try to get in bed by 11. I’m exhausted just writing this.

I think that hidden somewhere in this list is a promise for a more enriching life where I’m better able to feign competence at work and undo the weight gain brought on by the birth control that’s supposed to keep my period from ruining my life. Hidden in there is a promise that one day, if I keep this up long enough, I won’t have to catch a bus to the upper east side because I'll be living there, having somehow climbed the corporate ladder to the top or having sold a painting for a million dollars or having written a novel that’s won one of those fancy awards or having started and sold a business that’s made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

There’s something weighty about it all. About the youth that deludes us into thinking that all of this is possible. There’s something heavy about living a life where you feel like you can save yourself and change your destiny by working hard.There’s something backbreaking about arm wrestling God into handing you a future that you think you deserve.

Tonight it dawned on me that it’s possible that I won’t achieve any of the things I’ve been chasing after. It was that sharp pain I felt in my knees as I ran up the subway stairs to catch a train to the pilates class. It was the inability to hold a plank in said pilates class without feeling the burn of my mortality riding up my chest. It was the inability to taste the jollof rice I was eating when my mom mentioned that she hadn’t heard from my brother in over 24 hours. None of us had heard from him in over 24 hours. I have no control you see. Not over the things that really matter– the lives of my loved ones, the beat of my heart, the crease in my joints– there’s not much I can do to control any of these things. When reminded of the fragility of my life and everything I hold dear, I realize that much of all this running around is an illusion to feel a sense of control over things that I ultimately have no control over.

Tonight I’m praying for the restfulness that comes from knowing that I’ve been justified. Fully and utterly. There’s nothing more that I can do to change how God perceives me. Even if I wrote all the books and started billion dollar businesses and became a design thought leader person that everyone wanted to have on their podcast, it wouldn’t change how God sees me.There’s a freedom in that reality that I’ve yet to lay claim to. I think understanding that deeply will set me free from this yoke that I’ve put on myself to work to prove my worth.