It’s Not Boredom, It’s Self Sabotage

On Friday, I was sitting on a park bench in Camberwell with two old friends (Ty & Char). The sun was doing that polite London thing where it pretends to be warm, and we were talking about work, about the past, about who we used to be when we were all younger and slightly feral with ambition. T laughed and said, almost casually to me, “You know what you do? Just when you’re about to really cash in, you get bored and switch it up.” Charlotte nodded in agreement "Yeah, remember when you stopped styling and then you said to me - oh it looks fun again." They weren't being unkind, they were accurate.

Another friend in the crew said something similar in December 2023 when I was at the height of my burnout and in Jamaica. I was by the pool, journalling on my laptop. She said - "You're always working!". It was jarring. I was trying to take time for myself and she just saw the 32 year old version of me, grinding 24/7.

So when T and C joked about the boredom, instead of just laughing along, I did something different. You see, as you age and develop, the people who have known you for a long time (over 15 years with T&C) might hold an image in their head of who you are. That image might be at odds with the version of you today. That is even more true as you see friends less and less as adulting takes over. And I no longer want to laugh along with people who don't know my full story.

I cut through the small talk by saying quite plainly -