Happy Holidays and A Name Change
Living the Mess is becoming the Counterintuitive Guide to [Navigating] Life
Ten years ago, I was bartering with a coffee shop for food, because I couldn’t afford to buy my own. Perkins Coffee was everything you want a coffee shop to be: family-owned, intimate and artsy, with a variety of muffins, scones and other treats made daily in the small kitchen. I’d bring my 11” MacBook Air and set up at a counter facing the street. I’d spend a few hours writing, then go for a long walk along the seawall. Over and over, rain or shine. (And in BC, we get a lot of rain.)
At the end of 2013, sitting on that one-off-from-the-corner stool, I transferred three years of handwritten notes to my laptop. One afternoon, my former client Mark popped in for a coffee, and I told him about this soon-to-be blog, which didn’t yet have a name.
“Most of us spend our lives keeping busy so we don’t have to confront existential fears,” he said. “You’re facing your fears directly. You’re—” he gestured with his hands as he tried to find the words—”living the mess.” And thus, Living the Mess was born.
It was an apt name at the time. My only pants were green capri overalls (patched multiple times), and I had three shirts, all threadbare. I’d gone through the winter of 2012 with leaky boots, and it would take my toenails a decade to recover. In all of 2013, I earned less than $5,000. How I managed to survive and stay off the streets is a mystery and a miracle. No doubt my earlier privilege played a role, but still.
Over the past decade, much has changed—and many more miracles have unfolded. Although life is always going to be messy, because that’s how life is, the name no longer fits; it’s a bit like a running shoe that’s worn out. Or those boots.
And more than one person has said “Living the Mess” sounds like a rebuttal to Marie Kondo (LOL).
A change of name
In 2024, Living the Mess will be renamed The Counterintuitive Guide to Life. It’s tongue-in-cheek (because who am I to say I know anything?), but I like the cadence. In fact, it was the first name that emerged back in 2013, before Mark came up with Living the Mess. There’s an implied word: …to Navigating Life. Keeping it in just made the title too long.
In my experience, life is essentially a series of paradoxes: allowing instead of trying, giving before receiving, getting the inside right, and so many more. With this new framing, I’ll be exploring those paradoxes and how I came to learn them (sometimes over and over and over).
I’ll also look at how different ancient traditions point to these paradoxes—how despite different cultures and language, underneath divergent and divisive texts, there is only one teaching, and it doesn’t belong to any religion. It’s also not a ‘teaching’ in the way we think of it. The teaching points to an experience that can’t be conveyed in words, nor understood intellectually.
Another reason I like the name is that, in a slant way, it implies that I’m a “counterintuitive guide,” which feels right. There’s a Christian phrase that I’ve often thought apt: ‘It may come to the sinner before it comes to the saint.’ In many ways, I’m the last person anyone (including me!) would have expected to have a transformational perspective-altering experience. I’m wildly neurodivergent (autistic and ADHD), my background is a combination of academia and pop culture, and I’ve been known to swear like a sailor. I’m basically an uncool version of Weird Barbie.
In my life, especially prior to 2010, I hurt numerous people with my oblivious comments and actions. I didn’t even realize it at the time—or didn’t allow myself to realize it—but I see it now. I can’t make amends to those people, except by doing my best to be in integrity every day.
For now, my plan is to keep Counterintuitive Guide as a monthly newsletter, and to continue to write for Tiny Buddha and other outlets. My income comes from editing and coaching writers, so for those of you who are also writers, I’ll be bringing some of the core principles (maybe I should say ‘core paradoxes’) more strongly into that work.
In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful end to 2023 and a very happy new year (even though, y’know, every moment is the beginning of a new year 😉).
Warmly,
After reading the first paragraph, I thought the news was going to be that you bought a coffee shop!