New Year New(s)Letter!

AKA I am starting a Substack and this is my first post.

Happy New Year!

I’m finishing this and posting it before I can talk myself out of it. (Helpful technique for being productive when you’re a perfectionist.)

Someone DM’d me saying that they admired my confidence and wanted to know if I had any advice for someone who was a “people pleaser that struggles to just allow (themselves) to be okay with (themself)”

Did I respond to this DM? No. I do not interact with people I don’t know on social media. I barely respond to messages from people I do know. Call it ADHD, call it being a bad daughter, call it living in a tech age where the ability to be contacted is overwhelmingly easy. Whatever you want to call it, I was not made to be this available to so many people. I was made to be available for a smaller population of people who want to pay me $7 a month. (Paid subscribers, you are my people. I love you.) So, did I respond to this kind DM request? No.

But, I did read the DM and it reminded me that I used to be called confident all the time. At school, at karate school, at music school. I was very confident at school. I hated school but I was good at school and therefore I just did my work as best as I could and then didn’t give a shit about it anymore. I realize now that confidence is just doing your best and not giving a shit about the outcome.

I have not felt confident this past year. The TV show pilot I shot didn’t get picked up. My dog died. My entire industry went on strike for six months. The world went to war. I got a restaurant job. I got a second restaurant job. Last week a nice, well meaning couple asked me if I liked working at the restaurant. I smiled and said no, of course not. Then I asked them if they wanted a tiramisu or a panna cotta pudding. They picked the tiramisu and tipped 20%.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I’m faced with loss after loss after loss, I find it quite difficult to not feel desperate for a win. When I’m desperate for a win, I find it quite difficult to do my best work and not give a shit about the outcome. I do give a shit about the outcome. I need it to be a good outcome. If one more bad outcome pops up, I am going to find it quite difficult to not go find a very tall bridge.

But I cannot live this way! No! I cannot and I shall not! I shall be confident! I shall start a substack! I shall do my best at the substack and I will not give a shit about any and all outcomes from said substack! Thus it is said and thus it shall be so! Gong sound!

So, wonderful lady in my DMs request to whom I shall never respond, I say this to you as much as I say this to myself:

Do your best and don’t give a shit about what people think. When you stop people pleasing, people stop being pleased. However, it is not your job to please people. It is up to every individual to learn how to please themselves and then to go forth and do that shit. So do me a favor,

go do what pleases you and throw the outcomes off of a very tall bridge.

I am very excited to create this extremely imperfect newsletter. Thank you for being here with me. I have no idea what it will morph into and that, my dear reader, is what excites me the most.

Bye for now,

Addie Weyrich

(For my paid subscribers, below is an exciting update as well as exactly what is going through my head right now!)