This is week 3 of sharing the items I found in my Cari Jehlik Artist manifesto.

I think this one is the hardest for me to remember at all times. I am terrible about pressuring myself to do more all the time.
Have you ever seen the movie Dead Poet's Society?

​Several key things from have lodged into me permanently.
1. An adoration for Robert Sean Leonard. He's the real reason I ever watched House.
2. An overwhelming desire to be just like Charlie Dalton. And
3. The poem that he reads in the cave while showing off his saxophone skills:
Laughing crying tumbling mumbling
Gotta do more gotta be more
Chaos screaming, chaos dreaming
Gotta do more gotta be more

I think it's probably common among humans to feel like we need to constantly do or be more. Just one more thing. Just one more hour. If I achieve this thing or that, THEN I'll be worthy of that thing I'm chasing.

And so, this particular manifesto item feels apropos to counter the constant forward motion pushing of trying to achieve.

​Do you feel you resonate with Charlie's poem? Or does that idea feel pretty foreign to you?

​Item 2 is clearly a direct reference to Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey that I had listened to right before working out this manifesto. When you own a business, it's easy to let that business absolutely take over your life. When you're trying to MAKE MONEY, it's also easy to think that if I just work really, really hard for a while, I'll go viral, it'll pay off, and everything will be fine.

Also, grind culture is really prevalent in small businesses or side hustles or whatever you want to call it. I see and have seen the glorification of getting up at 4 am to get some work in, get yourself and possibly others ready for the day, then bust out a full day of work (that may or may not be related to said small business), do more side hustle work on lunch hours, take a few hours in the evening off to be with your family whatever that may look like, then put in a few more hours at the end of the evening before bed, get maybe 6 hours of sleep, then get up and do it all over again.

That feels like a REALLY unsustainable way to live.

I know that not everyone has the good fortune to not work or be able to quit their job to pursue a small business or whatever else. And I'm also not saying it's wrong to work hard for what you want.

I think the problem lies in the idea that this is the ONLY way or the BEST way. I've had seasons where I've woken up early to write or whatnot, but it's not sustainable long-term for me. When I was working daycare 50 hours a week, I didn't have much left in the tank at ANY point during the day to meaningfully put time into my business. I was SO TIRED. ALL THE TIME.
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In the back of my head, I hoped that I would find something that would go viral and be an instant success and everything would be okay. I could stop daycare, focus on this full time, my husband could quit his job, we could buy a yacht and live our life traveling the world, and all kinds of other ridiculous dreams. It does feel a bit small business countercultural to resist the grind, but I think it's important for me to do so.

​I've been trying to organize my things a little bit around here by clearing out old stuff, tearing out obsolete lists from my notebook, and so on.

It's been fun seeing bits of past me, my priorities, attempts at keeping my business organized and moving forward, bits and bobs of ideas, and two FULL handwritten patterns (clearly someone needs to transcribe), and more. 

In this notebook, on the first page, is the Cari Jehlik Artist Manifesto that I wrote probably two or three years ago now, just as I was looking to start this business. I clearly wanted to lay out some guiding principles that are ethical and honor all human beings.

I then *promptly* forgot about it and moved along. What's really interesting as I revisit these is how true to the core of my being these items actually are. Other than sometimes pushing myself too hard, I've stayed true to these manifesto principles. Every practice I have very consciously implemented take into consideration other people, recognizing they have lives outside of their connection to me, and how as a general rule, I'm probably one of the LEAST important things about their lives. 

Thinking back, I remember having listened to Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey and feeling how deeply I connected to what she was saying. I know now that it's my neurodivergence that latched onto these principles so hard. Throughout my life, "the way that things are done" often didn't work for me. They were too hard to maintain and burned me out. A LOT. Now I know why. I didn't then. So in a way, I was pre-emptively honoring my own AuDHD limitations without having a name for them.
It's really interesting to come back to these and reflect. 

I've taken courses and signed up for free workshops (and even a few paid ones) and time and again the advice revolves around being completely consistent, doing things daily (or nearly daily), keeping track of this and that, and more. And this is ON TOP of the assumption that we're not doing this creative business full time. 

I don't know about you, but doing something DAILY is SO HARD for me. The autism LOVES this kind of routine, but the ADHD consistently sabotages every attempt at consistency. And I also CANNOT work from 5 am to 10 pm every single day. Because the advice is to wake up early, take advantage of lunch, work after kids go to bed, and it makes for a completely nonstop day. I burn out in, like, 3 weeks. I can muscle through for about that long, and then I'm dead. My brain fogs up, I'm irritable, and can't function properly, let alone optimally. 

So I'm glad I came across this manifesto again. I'm looking forward to consciously revisiting it.