Take our Ambition Test

Find a therapist near me

My alarm goes off. I stumble out of bed to check my email. Before coffee!

I check my email because I am waiting for people to get back to me. I am waiting to hear back from publishers. I am waiting to hear back from television production companies. I am waiting to hear back from poetry contests. I am waiting to hear back from people who said they would get back to me, some of whom seemed quite excited about getting back to me as soon as humanly possible.

What I want is an answer. And I want that answer to be a "yes." I have been very clear with the universe about this. But lately I’ve begun to suspect I don’t want all those yeses quite the way I had thought I did.

I recently spoke with Irish philosopher Peter Rollins on my podcast Fifty Words for Snow, where my cohost and I discuss words without English equivalents. Peter suggested something that sounded insane: that there may........

© Psychology Today