112. Making Time

Some people on the Internet will try and tell you that they know the best way to live *your* life. Today, Nora breaks her rule of minding her own business to rail against this. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

It was my Turning 40 Resolution to mind my business. To live and let live. To practice radical acceptance of other people after a lifetime of codependent people pleasing (read: controlling) that many children of alcoholics fall into. To not bother calling out people who honestly do not want to hear what I have to say, and instead just keep my eyes on my own paper. Or podcast. Or whatever I’m working on.

But sometimes stuff crosses my desk, and it doesn’t matter what I’ve discussed with my therapist for weeks. It doesn’t matter that I’ve made it a practice to create space between the stimulus (something deeply annoying) and my response (losing my mind).

So instead of minding my business, I minded the business of the person whose business was being pushed into my social media feed, like it or not (I did not like it). 

I was just minding my own business, scrolling mindlessly on my phone, when I saw a video of a very rich, very fit influencer talking about…her fitness. Not illegal to do. That’s fine. The video was a montage of all of her many, many workouts. In an expensive home gym. Outside with her beautiful children. 

The secret to her fitness…was that she made the time. She didn’t FIND the time. She MADE It.

And I…snapped. I really did. 

This video had THOUSANDS of likes. Hundreds of comments. Tens of thousands of views. 

This is a person who has made her brand out of telling women they’re “enough” while simultaneously sharing the multiple luxury homes that she’s bought in cash. cash she earned by telling women they are “enough” but also…they could be just like her, a girl boss with her own empire if they bought her photo filters, her social media courses, her masterminds…

And you know what? I can let that slide, honestly. She didn’t invent capitalism, she’s just winning at it. There are bigger problems in the world, and bigger jerks.

But when you tell women that they can make time??? In the year 2023??? 

That’s stupid, wrong, and dishonest.

It’s okay to want to inspire people, but it’s not okay when someone doesn’t acknowledge that they’re playing with a stacked deck and a set of loaded dice. 

If you have the time to do what you want to do, it’s because you have something else: security, safety, a stay-at-home husband who does all the laundry and dishes and takes the kids to the doctor. That last example is me, by the way.

I do not find time or make time. I have time because I have financial security. I HAVE time because I do not spend every waking minute wondering if I have enough money to make it to my next paycheck. I have time because I have – knock on wood – health insurance. I have time because I have, again, a stay at home husband and I don’t even know how to use our washing machine!

Do not let anyone on the internet or in a self-help book make you feel like your lack of time to keep your house spotless and well-appointed, to get to the gym every day or write a novel, to do whatever you feel like you should be doing, is somehow a failure of your own making. 

It’s absolutely not. Most Americans don’t have the cash to cover a $1,000 emergency. Most Americans have more than one job! Most people are pretty much just out here surviving; the time they have is not enough, and they don’t need to feel worse because they don’t spend three hours a day at a home gym that costs more than some people’s cars.

Ten years ago I was a new mom with a husband whose brain cancer was resisting treatment. It was the height of Girlbossery and we were saying things like, “You have the same number of hours in the day as Beyonce.” 

I spent every day thinking I was a failure, falling behind in every aspect of life.

Because we don’t all have the same 24 hours in a day. 

We never did. We certainly don’t now. 

In many ways this podcast is a way for me to rail against the self-help industry and the people who make literally millions of dollars a year trying to convince you that everything you want is on the other side of fear (it’s not!) or whatever other platitude they can use to bludgeon you into their sales funnel.

This show is called it’s going to be okay…and you know what? It’s going to be. Because the next time you see something like that cross your feed, you can laugh it off, swipe it away, and remember that somewhere in the world, I am just out here, promising that tomorrow…I will mind my business.