As I Get Older, I Know I'm Not What I Do or Earn

Now That I Am Not What I Do, Can I Do Nothing? Relaxing Days in Misty Cliffs.

It occurred to me a couple of years ago that I didn't really know what made me happy. That's actually another whole post on its own at some point. But, when I started to think about what made me happy, I also started to consider what I really wanted in life. Bearing in mind that I had got to quite an advanced age before I actually spent time reflecting on these rather major things. I don't blame myself for this - and I don't think that I'm alone. We get on a treadmill from when we are tiny, moving from development stage to education stage to relationship stage to life stage to financial stage, to repeating it all again via the kids. And so we go along - trying to be above-average at each stage, levelling up as we go. That's socialisation for you. And for the most part, I don't really have an issue with that. It's very definitely a problem of privilege, if we are honest. But when you actually stop and think about what you really want from life, it may not always be the socialised version of who you are. That's what happened to me.

I covered this to an extent last week in the piece I wrote on not wanting children of my own. But it also applies to relationships, homes and jobs. I remember a few years ago, sitting in my beautiful three-bed cottage with magnificent views over the ocean, and wondering why I felt claustrophobic and how I was ever going to need three bedrooms. I sold the house to someone who loves it, and bought myself a brilliant city-centre apartment of great beauty and minimal size, and breathed out, happy that I had all I needed. Which is less than what I thought I did - or what I am socialised to believe my salary and age requires me to need.

Speaking of salaries, that's another treadmill we get caught on. As you gain more experience, you gain a better salary. You use the better salary to purchase all the lovely stuff you want and can now afford - and you expand your life to fit it. Now you are a slave to it. You actually need it to maintain your life. Which means that - even if you hate your job - you have to keep doing it or find something similarly salaried. With growth in salary comes growth in responsibility and stress. You start to become inextricably linked to the job that you do, and it can land up defining you - even if you don't love it in the first place. You have to take that moment to stop and think about what you do to earn that salary, and decide if that's the life you want. Is the salary worth the hours you put in every day, the sacrifices you make to yourself and your loved ones? And ultimately whether you could be happier doing something smaller, less advanced, to achieve happiness and a sense of identity separate to what you do and what you earn.

Doing What I Love to Do. Visiting Galleries in London.
Tate Modern Installation by Kara Walker.

I know that this is fairly specific and that I am actually describing my own process. But maybe you've been there, or seen it happening to someone around you. What I do know is this:

1. I really like money and what it allows me to do in life. And I have to earn it myself.
2. I am in an incredibly privileged position that allows me to consider what kind of salary is enough for that. (I will caveat this by saying that I am privileged by being a well educated and connected white person so I have all the opportunities - even though I do not come from a wealthy family, and there is no trust fund or rich husband and that every house, car or ring I own, I earned every penny of it - but I am totally aware that my privilege allowed me the platform to hustle to earn what I have earned. I am ultimately very lucky.)
3. I want to own much less stuff - invest wisely in what I do have, care for it and nurture it over time, but reduce my consumerism and general stuff-ownership.
4. I want my working life to be meaningful and purposeful. I want to earn a salary for doing something that I believe in, that helps someone, and that energises me. 
5. I care less for titles and hierarchies and more for team-work and supporting other women and growing people around you.
6. I want work/life balance in a super-ambitious way. I mean the way in which I work and love it, but that my evenings and weekends are 100% work-free and about LIVING.
7. When someone asks me what I do, I want to say that I visit galleries and read and listen to music and podcasts, and travel to extraordinary places. And that for a living I do this incredible thing - isn't it amazing? I mean that isn't too much to ask, is it?

So it was that I used to not know who I was outside of what I did to earn the salary that allowed me to spend it to try and be happy. Now I am happy and I want to find something to do that earns a salary that allows me to continue to be that. And it is much, much less than what it used to be.

People who are kind and flattering sometime mention my success in life and I look at them quizzically and ask what they mean. Because when you aren't happy, nothing feels like success. My greatest success is knowing this and feeling the love and loving in return. I am now proud of things that I have accomplished in my life, I don't want to do them again, but I respect that I made giant sacrifices to achieve them. That is now done. From here on I am Robyn Cooke who is happy and living to stay happy and help others be happy. Even if it means a small flat, a shorter trip, fewer shoes. Well, hang on a second, maybe not the shoes...