The Crisis of Wanting More
I had my first eureka moment about society and the pressures of success about five years ago. I was fervently researching racism and white supremacy because I was fed up with living in a society that seemed so dedicated to hating Black bodies. My research existed to answer one question, and one question only: Why? As in, why do they hate us so much? The follow up question: and how did we end up here?
I have been silently asking these questions for as long as I could remember. As a little girl, I could feel the racism in my bones, but I didn’t have words for it. I saw the supremacy of whiteness everywhere, but I didn’t have a name for it. I internalized an inferiority that was biologically false, but true by society’s design, and learned to accept the fallacy as truth. Overtime, it became something I learned not to question. That’s just the way things were. It was what it was. I either had to learn to play the game of proving my worth to our white-dominated society or allow the waves of white supremacy to sink me. Those were my two choices.
I chose the former. I became obsessed with success. Success would be my ticket to survive—and hopefully, thrive—in a society that wanted nothing more than to see me fail. While my original mission was survival, somewhere along the way, I fell in love with success. I fell in love with the idea of becoming an adult and living out every dream my little girl heart imagined while making enough money to sustain myself. I loved the feeling achievement gave me and did everything I could to chase that feeling again and again. The more I achieved, the more I felt like I was the filling my worthiness void. Eventually, I figured, achievement would cause that hole to close for good. So, I continued to chase. And chase. And chase.
And the line between chasing achievement for worthiness and enjoyment blurred.
Achievement not only gave me a sense of worthiness my little girl heart longed for, but it was fun! From writing in my planner with multi-color gel pens to winning awards at national speech competitions, I loved to be productive and I loved the feeling of accomplishment that solidified a job-well-done. Productivity and accomplishment became my entire identity—an identity, I figured, that would guarantee my success as an adult. Obtaining a career I loved post college? No problem! Making more than enough money? Easy. Never doubting myself because my accomplishments put a stamp on my confidence? Absolutely.
Well, once I entered adulthood, I had the last laugh. The last laugh, indeed.
Without going into too many details that would be more suited for my second book, I did not experience career success post college. I worked retail for a number of years and joined a teaching fellowship program out of desperation for a real career. One minute, I was confident I would be the next big news anchor in Washington, DC, and the next, I was giving up on my career dreams entirely as the reality of adulthood—and bills—smacked me in the face.
It’s been 13 years, and I’ve been seeking the feeling of accomplishment ever since.
Over the past 13 years, I became a wife, a mother and stepmother, and learned all too quickly that this world was not designed for the dreams and desires of little Black girls. The chasing and panting I was doing in my teens and early 20s had little to do with real success and much more to do with trying to keep up in a society that defines success by the access, privilege, and a false sense of grind that elite white men pretend is the reason they are successful.
As a woman, especially a Black woman, I would never win. I would never be able to keep up. And that’s exactly how they designed it. I am supposed to feel dismayed by the barriers that stand in front of my dreams and give up on them all, falling for the lie that my limitations are personal failures instead of structural design.
Please note: this isn’t to say that Black women aren’t successful. Black women are some of the most successful people in our society. However, that success comes at a cost—typically a cost of humanity, dignity, letting racism and micro-aggressions slide, and immense sacrifice of family, femininity, and softness.
In short: if you want success, act like that elite white male with privilege and maybe you’ll get a fraction of what they have. Maybe.
Having these realizations has resulted in quite a bit of emotional turmoil, as I’m sure you can imagine. The five stages of grief have been grief-ing. One minute, I’m anti-success. Mad at it, even. The fact that society has convinced all of us that our key to happiness is constant success infuriates me. It infuriates me even more that I still want that success even though I now know the root messaging behind that desire. I feel like I shouldn’t want it now that I know the truth, but I do. And it saddens me that society’s recipe for obtaining said success is exactly what I mentioned above: the immense sacrifice of my femininity, softness, family, and humanity.
What do you do when you learn the truth behind our desire for success, but you still desire that success?
How do you navigate wanting something so deeply that was originally designed to not only strip you of your humanity, but maintain a hierarchy of power within race, class, and gender?
This is the crossroads where my knowledgeable adult self and innocent inner child—who still finds achievement quite exciting—stands. And I’m wondering, if you, dear reader, feel the same way.
If so, I invite you to keep reading.
This tension between acknowledging my deep desires of wanting more, and knowing the systemic truth about why those desires exist, is what I’ve been wrestling with this entire year. Especially since the barriers I face as a Black woman, who is a wife and full-time mother, have been especially statuesque for several years.
I know why my achievement (per society’s standards) has been lacking. I’m aware of the barriers, the historic roots, and the systemic injustices that stand in my way. And, I know that one of the most liberating things I could do is rid myself of any desire for success and simply live my life as the worthy queen I am. Wouldn’t it be so easy if that were simply, enough?
So, why isn’t it?
I’ve tried for a few years to be okay with accepting my fate as a woman who simply cannot do more than raise my children and maintain my home. I’ve attempted to be content with this, telling myself that being home with my children was the most revolutionary thing I could do as a Black woman, that rest is my portion, and that “doing more” no longer needs to be in my vocabulary.
And, yet…I want more.
I can’t help it. I want the dream career that makes more than enough money to provide comfort and generational access for my family. I want feelings of accomplishment again, whether it’s winning an award or being granted access to some incredible opportunities. I want everything that those elite white men receive just by combing their toupee in the right direction.
But, I want it all without sacrificing my humanity to obtain it.
That is where I draw the line.
I will no longer sacrifice my humanity, my power, my dignity, my femininity, my softness, or my beliefs to gain access to the success I desire.
THIS is the liberation I’ve been seeking.
For so long, I tried to convince myself that the liberation was in no longer desiring, or attempting to obtain, what the success society convinced me was required for my worth. I tried to let go of it, maintaining that the freedom was in no longer trying.
That’s not where the freedom lies.
The freedom lies in obtaining everything that wasn't meant for you anyway, and doing so without selling your soul.
How do we do this? Well, therein lies the question. And, I’ll be honest: I don’t have all the answers. I’m not writing on the other side of said success with some blueprint to sell you. I’m writing this from the journey, and inviting you to journey along side me if you see yourself in this story.
This is the official launch of my new Substack newsletter: The Liberation Letters, where together we will heal, seek liberation, and decolonize our beliefs about how we live, work, and dream.
Here you’ll find soft rebellion for the everyday, thoughtful provocations, and words for those who want to build beautiful, meaningful lives without submitting to systems that were never built for our freedom. Also, a bit of personal, just for the hell-of-it essays, too. Because true liberation is in writing whatever heals my soul, not keeping myself in a box.
I won’t have all the step-by-step answers, but I will provide insight into how we can desire more while taking soft, rebellious baby steps toward achieving that more without abandonment of ourselves or our rebellion. This space will also hold space for the tension between wanting more and resisting the systems that define “more;” help you uncover ways to reclaim freedom, creativity, and joy while acknowledging the restraints of society; and connect history, culture, and personal reflection to real life.
My hope for you and me? A gentle exhale that allows us to want more for ourselves and our community without losing ourselves in the process.
Thank you for being here, and welcome to The Liberation Letters.
A few tools to help you get started on your liberation journey. (I’m using these, too, right along with you.)
Your Liberated Year: a gentle, guided workbook for living free
Reclamation Reset: a focused reset for anytime you need to, well, reset
We’ll All Be Free: How a Culture of White Supremacy Devalues Us and How We can Reclaim Our True Worth (a book that deserves to be a best-seller because your life will change)
Considering becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack! Each month, I will write one free essay that explores the intersection of society, culture, and daily life and one paid essay that takes those topics deeper to help us both on our liberation journeys. (There will be some months I can’t keep up with two essays and some I can deliver more. That’s my reality and my humanity. Owning that allows the barriers to exist with them defining me.) Annual paid subscribers will also receive a free copy of The Reclamation Reset and Your Liberated Year! Founding Subscribers will receive a free, signed copy of my book! Subscribe here.
This post was originally published to my Substack, The Liberation Letters. If you want to continue the conversation, go deeper into the ideas we explore here, and support the work, you can subscribe to my Substack, grab a copy of my book We’ll All Be Free, or even buy me a coffee. Every action, big or small, helps keep this work alive—and keeps us all moving toward liberation, together. Thank you.