Paris Taught Me to Stop Optimizing My Life

Why I'm still learning that life isn't a to-do list.

a morning wander through the Jardin de Luxembourg

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I talk a lot about daily practice in my work — any solo, single-tasking, sacred time you set aside for yourself to come back to yourself. It’s not about productivity or perfection. It’s not even a sexy promise with guaranteed outcomes. (i.e., “If you practice, then you will be kinder to your spouse / calmer / sleep better / fill-in-your-blank.”)

Mostly, I just notice that I’m more present and aligned with my “one wild and precious”¹ when I practice daily.

My blueprint? Morning pages and 20 minutes of seated meditation. Yoga a few times a week. Reading to unstick myself when necessary.

This is my daily bread & butter practice, what I call “short form” practice.

But here’s the thing about practice I don’t talk about as much:

There’s also long form practice (retreats, solo weekends, half-days to putter and ponder) — which is like the “system reset” for YOU.

Long form practice is delicious. Luxurious. It requires our most precious resources: time, energy, attention

And literal negotiation with your people (your boss, spouse, dog sitter, financial planner, in-laws). Which means, there’s no “perfect time” for long form practice.

But I have found that placing long form practice at threshold moments, like the turn of the seasons, your birthday, after your divorce / your big client win / finishing your manuscript / you name it!, makes a lot of sense.

I turned 40 this year. (Have you heard? 😉) This fall also marks 10 years of my marriage.

In honor of these major thresholds, my long form practice has taken the shape of an utterly epic Eat, Pray, Love year of travel — which was about 40 years in the making.

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The Eat & Love Legs of my Trip: Spain & Paris

This past month, I did parts 1 and 2 of that triad. (Part 3—pure PRAY—happens in India next March. Three spots left if you want to join.)

First: 4 nights on Formentera, a tiny island off Spain’s coast. Just me and my dear friend Amanda, sitting in the sun, eating freshly caught fish, skinny dipping, writing in my notebook, rereading favorite books, staring into the middle distance. Walking. Wine. Eat. Rest. Repeat.

Then: I flew from Ibiza to Paris (which, btw, is a completely once-in-a-lifetime sentence for me to write) to meet my husband. Definitely Love. Definitely Eat.

[I’ll share more about the Paris marriage-system-reset bit over on The 40 Portal, since re-vivifying a decade-long marriage, mid-life, while raising two young kids is peak Portal content.]

But for now, I need to tell you this:

Paris reminded me so much of practicing meditation.

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Raised to DO

Listen, I was born and raised on American capitalist, Puritanical productivity. Maybe you were too?

My deeply-wired first impulse with most things is to DO them. Fix. Solve. Achieve. Accomplish. Optimize. Hustle. Make it bigger, better, shinier. Cross it off the list. Pass Go, collect $200.

Whatever it is, it’s definitely an action-verb approach to life. And I want to see results.

This is what I’ve been trying to heal for the last 12 years of my adult life. But damn, this stuff is sticky. The status quo is hard to unlearn.

That’s why I’m practicing. (See what I did there?)

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What Paris Knows

Wandering around Paris — following our noses, our eyes, our hearts without an itinerary, just a good list of recs from friends — it became crystal clear that the city is wired around completely different priorities.

I wouldn’t dare name them with authority, but here’s what I observed:

Beauty. Timelessness. Artistry. Creativity. Pleasure. Enjoyment. Relaxed presence.

Actually living life at a sensory, slowed-down speed. Not just working hard and doing it efficiently.

(see, I think she knows ☝️)

It felt like healing balm for my nervous system. Inspiration for my soul. And the exact kick in the pants my husband and I needed to set an intention for our next decade together.

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The Meditation Connection

Here’s what meditation and Paris have in common: