Let Desperation Be Your Motivator

The response I got to this message was, “You are so funny.”

I am very funny. [dead pan face] Once I became clever enough to use humor as a shield, I gained a superpower in life. I could deflect my feelings on any topic through sarcasm and wit. When they say that sarcasm is anger’s ugly cousin — I used to find this offensive, but now I understand.

This conversation with my hot, smart and single friend Paul, took place in 2016. It was my rock bottom in life. I turned 40 and realized that half of my life was over. I had an enviable resume and exceptional life experiences, but when I looked out in the horizon, to the next 40–50 years, I couldn’t fathom it. I knew my body would start to fail me even more than it already was, possibly my mind too. And on top of that, I’d soon fail to meet society’s standard of beauty. What was I missing from this sad picture?

Clearly, by the message, I was single. I had missed the window for having kids safely and naturally, something my friend Paul reminded me of in a separate conversation, that fractured our friendship for the first time. And now I need to digress for a second, because I know what you are thinking. I know what you want to say because I hear it so often: I’d be happier in a relationship.

Being on the other side of this societal belief, that women need to be in a relationship to be happy — and have children — I can tell you with a great degree of confidence, Jordan Peterson fans, that getting married and having kids was NOT what was missing in my life. There was possibly some underlying anxiety about the unknown, because I wasn’t sure what life required of me as a woman, who missed the “window of opportunity” to start a family.

Today, I’m very clear about what I want. I wish I had this clarity and confidence all along because it would have led me to experience life differently. I avoided commitment because I was so afraid of getting stuck — accidentally pregnant or marrying because that was the next logical thing to do.

I do believe that you can meet someone you really love and want to be with. I didn’t meet that person. What was I going to do? Settle? When in my life have I settled? Even what I eat passes a culinary gold standard — why would I want to wake up next to anyone who doesn’t pass the same gold standard?

I could write a book on my view on relationships. I almost did. It was called, “141 Things I Look For In A Guy” and I’ve been asked to publish it because people want to see this list. It’s a real list. I don’t actually use it or benchmark anyone against it anymore. I did in the past but I’ve significantly lowered my expectations since. I only care about one thing on that list now — and since I usually don’t find it, it’s pretty easy for me to continue living my life.

Now that I’ve taken you down this rabbit hole of how I was feeling at the time of my own desperation — I’ll talk about it’s counterpart, hope. They say hope is the last thing to go. Ok well, I had none. When you have no hope, there is nothing you can do about it. Doctors will tell you you are depressed. They’ll try to prescribe medicine. I refused all of it. The diagnosis and the medicine. I know better than to use bandaid solutions for something I was experiencing that was much deeper. I was having an existential crisis.

I left the startup I was working for, which for the first time in my entire life, gave me the gift of time and wisdom. I knew I was having a spiritual crisis of sorts so did what I know best — try to heal my body. My body and all of its pain is a compass for how I feel. It tells me where I’m storing emotions that I need to acknowledge or I’ve been avoiding feeling. In one of my healing sessions, the reflexologist says, “Your creativity was blunted as a child. You need to do something that you really loved as a kid.” I was in too much pain to take ballet, plus I don’t think I loved ballet as much as I loved the pursuit of perfection.

This is when I decided to get back on the ice. After 30 years, my skate tech who was still working all these years later, put me in a new pair of skates and my old childhood blades (I had big feet as a kid).

I could bore you with all the details of my figure skating comeback and everything I had to overcome to become a nationally ranked athlete competing against women half my age — but I rather you to take one main message from all of this is — if you don’t have any hope left — then use desperation as fuel. You will be in good company. The way I see it now — desperation is a prerequisite for living an extraordinary life.

We need to stop using labels like depression or anxiety to name things that could be happening on a spiritual level. I don’t discount these conditions exist on their own. But if you are not content with your life, and you feel this unsettling feeling in your heart and soul, please follow it. Don’t ignore it. It’s not in your head.

You are being moved just like all the great writers, artists and anyone who has created a meaningful thing in this life. They didn’t create it out of comfort or complacency. They created it because they were desperate. Desperate for change. Desperate for improvements. Desperate for meaning.

Let desperation be your motivator.