'Why Did No One Tell Me That Life Is So Limited?'

This crushing moment has the power to show you exactly who you are.

Hospitalité (1958) by Dorothea Tanning

Polly,

I've been reluctant to write to you because my problems are so all-consuming and yet so non-tangible, and I don't even know if I have the words for them.

I'm 24, from London, and I graduated from university last summer. I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to spend the last year of university on exchange in Hong Kong, which was a really beautiful and life-changing experience, and I miss it every day.

I grew up in an immigrant family without much money and with major emotional issues. My family keeps big secrets and doesn't communicate healthily and I feel stifled and stagnant at home, but I moved back after graduation to save some money for a master's that I'll be starting in September.

In Hong Kong, life felt limitless. I was being taught by incredible academics with a real passion for their subject, and I became really interested in anthropology and human geography, which is what I'll be studying for my master's. Quite a few of my professors in Hong Kong encouraged me (unprompted!) to apply for grad school — I loved being believed in, and was convinced that I need to continue with education. The exchange program was fully funded by the government, so I was never too worried financially while I was out there. I was in a beautiful city, surrounded by beaches and mountains and good weather and good food, completely autonomous, and really, really happy.

Since graduating and moving back home, I've lost this feeling of limitlessness entirely. I've been working in government, and while it is a job that aligns with my values, it isn't exciting. I'm starting this master's soon, but I already feel disillusioned by the prospect of working in academia. For the last hour, I've been reading through Reddit threads about the impossibility of finding secure and well-paying employment as a professor, and since I already don't come from much money, it feels silly and irresponsible to continue to be financially insecure when I've already got a well-paying job.

In my mind, I imagine myself as a researcher and lecturer, spending my time teaching determined undergraduates, and observing, researching and writing about the world around me. In reality, I am so worried about money, about making the 'wiser' decision, about being realistic. I'm sad. I left my year abroad feeling like the world was full of possibility, that anything was available to me if I wanted it enough and tried hard enough, that I was capable and smart and determined and that life was full of beauty. I would wake up in my shitty dorm room and still be over the moon that I was living and breathing and thriving halfway across the world.

Sometimes, I get angry that I even had that experience of living abroad. I feel like it's shown me a level of joy and possibility that's really quite unrealistic and unattainable in the 'real world', where money and time are so limited. I'm so scared to be stuck in a just-okay job forever, to never achieve anything of substance, to have just floated through life, though at the same time I don't know what the thing I want to 'achieve' even is. I just want more than this. There has to be more to life!? I go on Instagram and see 'creatives' who paint or write or dance for a living, and I feel so bitter. I see academics getting paid to research topics I'd love to research, and I feel sad. I was a really smart kid, consistently told that I'm capable of so much, and I feel like I'm realizing that we all end up leading mundane lives with mundane 9-5s anyway.

One of my friend's mums advised her, growing up, to 'not dream too big' as it leads to disappointment. I felt like that was awful advice at the time, and now a year after first hearing it, I wonder if it was wise after all.

Is this all there is? Is doing something great with my life even possible, or do I need to come to terms with mundanity?

I'm a big fan of your work by the way - it keeps me sane.

Limited

Dear Unlimited,

I just changed your name. I suggest you do the same.

The first thing I want you to do when you get up in the morning and the last thing I want you to do at night is to cultivate an unlimited mindset within the context of this limited world. Every time someone suggests to you that the world can be as boundless and surprising as you wish it to be, I want you to listen closely and take it to heart. Write it down and tape it to your bedside lamp if you have to. And every time someone tells you that in order to live the life of a dreamer, you’ll have to give up security and safety and nice things, I want you to picture yourself as a dreamer in a very tiny, ugly house that you own, free and clear, with three small things in it: 1) a smooth gray rock from a river, 2) a small clay heart you made and dried in the oven and then painted with the perfect shade of raspberry red nail polish, and 3) a tarnished ring you bought from a thrift store. Picture yourself in a hut with three belongings. Picture yourself happy in the morning and happy at night.

That’s who you are.

You are someone who needs dreams more than you need nice things. You are someone who needs faith more than you need bulletproof, long-term plans. You are someone who needs to see your life as unlimited more than you need to recognize the inevitable obstacles and disappointments that lie ahead. You’re a person who needs to worship the sky in the morning, and while you praise the peach and gold light, you need treasure every mistake you’ve ever made like a tarnished ring, like a clay heart, like a smooth river rock. Mundane mistakes and mundane objects are filled with magic. You have the rare ability to recognize that.

Everything that goes wrong right now is a gift that shows you what you don’t want. Everything that goes right is a glimpse of what’s possible. This is true for all of us, no matter how old we are, but it’s especially true for you in this moment, because everything is new for you. Instead of cursing your days in Hong Kong and bemoaning the unrealistic words of your professors there, thank the gods that you were given a chance to see how tall and wide and full life can feel! Rather than lamenting the mundane horrors of your government job, thank the gods that you’ve been offered an opportunity to tour the exact life you never want – up close, in detail!

You will look back on these days when you’re older and have even more problems, big and small, and you’ll say “Sure this stuff is hard, but at least I’m not living at home and working at that torturous fucking job!” You will feel grateful that this unlimited world gave you an opportunity to see who you are, as clear as day, without a shadow of doubt.

Because knowing who you are and what you love is bliss. You can get through a lot, once you know who you are and you’re willing to stand up for who you are. You can tolerate and accept a lot of mundane limits and navigate around a lot of mundane anxiety and dread, once you learn how to celebrate your truest desires and ambitions.

You just need to understand this: You are a person who needs to cultivate an unlimited mindset no matter what you’re doing. You need to imagine big things. You need to dream. You need to research cool subjects and insist that others do the same. You need to grow into the kind of professor who will tell younger people they should consider grad school — even though it’s impossibly hard and there are zero guarantees of employment and there are countless disappointments along the way.

When I was your age, my dad owned this book with the title Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow. He recommended I read it because he was a dreamer who always cultivated the view that anything was possible. I was young and didn’t believe that anything was possible. I was considering becoming a lawyer because all you had to do was take the stupid LSAT and then you could get a decent job. My dad told me that all of the lawyers he knew hated their jobs. I should not pursue a career that other people hated.

I didn’t read that book back when my dad told me to, but I do have it on my shelf now, to remind me of his belief that anything was possible for me. And if my dad were still alive, he’d tell me not to go on Reddit to read about how disillusioned most of the writers in the world feel at this moment about their prospects for earning a living moving forward. Don’t get me wrong: I have lots of fears about my ability to keep writing for a living. I work hard, every single day, to keep the faith instead of giving in to those fears.

People who are good at cultivating an unlimited mindset avoid discouragement, even when it’s arguably practical and realistic. This was also the case with an older dreamer friend of mine, who talked to me at the exact right time about my fears of being middle-aged. She said This is the most luminous time of your life. She said Never, ever listen to people who can’t see that, can’t feel it, don’t understand it. They aren’t important.

She changed how I felt at a cellular level that day, the way Hong Kong changed you. Imagine becoming someone like that! I walked around all day thinking, “Thank god I told her my fears! Thank god she exists!”

And I walked around all year saying, “This is the most luminous time of my life.”

If you’re not the letter writer but you read these words and think “This is for me!” then I want you to stop and take them to heart. I’ve been doing that all my life, reading random things and saying, “This is for me!” And reading other things and saying “This is for someone else. I don’t need to think this way.” That’s why knowing yourself and understanding who you are is so important.

You don’t know exactly who you are yet, Unlimited. But Hong Kong showed you a lot. You learned so much. It was all for you, wasn’t it? The sky was for you, the weather was for you, the books you read were for you, the lights of the city at night were for you. I’m not trying to say you should live in Hong Kong, not necessarily, though I wouldn’t rule it out. I’m saying you learned a ton about who you are. You learned how good it feels to know when something is for you.

The fact that you’re now angry that you had that experience also says something about who you are. You’re very afraid to feel as much as you’re capable of feeling. You’re afraid to know who you are. You’re afraid to understand how luminous and unlimited you are, because you’re sure that the world will shut that person down and reject her and make her feel like a fool. Who taught you that? Why do you believe that? Ask yourself where those beliefs began.

And then stomp them out. Reject the rejection itself. This part of my message is for anyone who’s struggling at an academic job that leads nowhere, anyone who’s making art that seems like it doesn’t matter, anyone who wrote a book that no one read. Don’t let this mundane, limited world convince you that the only way to tolerate the enormity of your desires is by disowning and disavowing them, by treating them like delusions, by mimicking the fearful and anxious and numb people around you.

The most precious thing you own is your faith in your own stubborn heart, your own delirious soul, your own glorious dreams. Your dreams aren’t about becoming someone else — someone successful, someone important. That’s why those influencers piss you off. You don’t want to be them at all! They have nothing to do with you! Your dreams are simply about embracing the tiny, delicious details of the life you have, connecting with other dreamers, aligning yourself with nature, soaking in the day with all of your senses, researching subjects you love, and encouraging other young people to dream the way you do. Your dreams can fit into a small rented room. Your dreams can be picked up like a clay heart and held in your palm and treasured.  

In order to cultivate an unlimited mindset, you don’t just accept limits, you embrace them. You say to yourself, “I can flourish in this difficult place. I can tolerate these absurd humans. Because inside me, there is a vast, wide sea that swirls and shifts, sparkling gray and blue like this vast, wide sky above me.”

Pursue your academic dreams. Don’t do it because you’ll become someone important. Do it because it makes you feel alive right now, it supports who you are, it gives you an unparalleled  opportunity to embody your values and principles. Difficulties and obstacles only make it even more possible to manifest your faith and inspire others with it. You will be rich or poor or somewhere it between, and it won’t matter that much. What will always matter is how you feel RIGHT NOW, what you believe in RIGHT NOW, and how unlimited the world feels to you RIGHT NOW.

At the heart of all of this, for you, is daring to feel more, daring to care more, daring to invest and invest and invest, daring to look like a fool in the eyes of those who never dare.

This is who you are. You are luminous when you feel everything, when you dare, when you give up on having too much and you learn how perfect JUST ENOUGH looks and feels to you. It looks like less than enough to others. That’s not your problem.

Don’t make other people’s anxious noise your noise. Remember the vast sea inside you, always. Remember Hong Kong. Hold these treasures close and know that anything is possible. Anything. Dare to believe it. Dare and dare and dare and dare.

You will lose faith. You will feel discouraged. You will feel tired.

And you will get up the next day and believe all over again. This is who you are. You are a true believer. It feels so good to know that, doesn’t it? It feels so good to celebrate it, to love it, against the backdrop of this mundane, limited world.

Dare to believe every single day. Be who you are.

Polly

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Thanks for reading Ask Polly. I want to write this column until I am very, very old. I want to keep telling you what you need to hear until you finally believe it. Thank you for believing in me!