On Turning Three

3 Years and Counting of Actually Honest Tuesdays

Happy 3rd birthday to this publication! How very much has changed since I started writing every Tuesday three years ago. If you’ve been around since the beginning—thank you. If you’re new—thank you, too. Hopefully I provide something of value for everyone who scrolls through here.

Actual Honesty is, at its core, a self-development focused publication intended to incite contemplation and nuanced inquiry. I cover the topics that interest and fire me up, like: mental health, childcare, social media, digital addiction, living with uncertainty, and pursuing an honest life. I want this newsletter to remind its readers that here, right now, is the only time they can do anything about anything. More often than not, the truth of this moment is that you’re actually ok, as you are. Maybe the only self-help strategy we really need is to remember this.

In the past three years, I’ve strayed away from the kinds of self-help programs and practices that I’ve previously been reliant on. I used to meditate every day, do yoga, wake up at 5am to smash my whole morning routine. I used to think that I needed to check off a list of things in order to be growing and becoming my “authentic self.” I used to cast lists of “manifestations” that I would talk myself into believing were imminently happening. In the last three years, I’ve cycled through a handful of diets and dozens of supplements I crossed my fingers would make me healthier, better, more optimized.

And yet.

Here I stand in 2024, with none of the above as a part of my daily practice. I don’t meditate or document every thought and feeling as a way to “hack” my subconscious mind and “reprogram” it to behave differently. I save hundreds of dollars by not buying supplements every month. I no longer meticulously monitor my mind for traces of negativity, and I try my hardest not to believe that delusional/paranoid thoughts are actually my intuition.

And I’m a lot…healthier, without all that stuff.

Yes, I’m still neurotic and anxious about theoretical terrible things that may lurk around the corner. I still get lonely and melancholic, I still long for what I don’t have. I still am fully and completely in the void of the unknown: I don’t know what’s going to happen, I can’t know until it does.

But, I’m finding that life is a lot more enjoyable when I’m living it rather than controlling it. My body is a nicer place to be when I’m not constantly trying to control it. Collaboration over control seems to be the motto of my life, now. How can I collaborate with my mind, my body, or the circumstances of my life? How can I ease away from trying to control, and instead work together with what’s here for me?

As I wrote about last week, perhaps all the things we do to try to be better or healthier or happier are ways to avoid reality. Perhaps we’re trying to control our lives and bodies because we’re afraid of the discomfort of the truth: that we don’t know what the future holds; that we can’t control it; that we are inevitably going to incur pain, and eventually death. We can try to control and fix and solve as much as we want, but as long as we are avoiding the reality of uncertainty, we are avoiding living a full, honest life.¹

Actual Honesty is a way of accessing that full life—it requires we face the truth, even as it changes, no matter how uncomfortable that is. It asks us to ask ourselves: If I have any say in how my life turns out—well then, what do I say? How do I create something honest and beautiful with my time here?

Being actually honest is a selfish and a communal pursuit; one that encourages us to stand in that good, nuanced middle-ground in between extremes. It humbles us, connects us to others, and offers us the opportunity to change our minds and our paths when one thing becomes more or less true. Paradoxically, actual honesty is most often found in the gray area.

The gray area is the harder place to be, but it’s really the only one I’m interested in occupying.

And so—may we all pursue being actually honest, at least a little more of the time. May we all pursue to collaborate with our lives and bodies instead of try to control them. Those are my two intentions going forward, especially as I enter this next big cycle of life. My graduate program is escalating quite a bit starting next week, and I will be beginning to see a couple of clients. My already full life is overflowing before my eyes—and while I have a sense of what’s to come, who really knows. The void of the unknown exists alongside the busyness of plans.

I will continue to make contact with my beautiful readers each week. You continue to expand, and come from all over the demographic spectrum! I am so very grateful for your presence. Continue to read, share, and subscribe at your will.

With that said, if I become overloaded with work and otherwise in the coming few months, you may occasionally receive a little something different on a Tuesday morning—a repost of a previous entry, a book review, a shorter reflection here and there. I’ll be doing my best, always.

In pursuit of an actually honest life,

Maggie

1. From Wellness vs. Uncertainty