I recently signed up to receive business advice from a local group of volunteers, many of whom are retired from their own small companies or freelance work.

Aside from some possibly out-dated advice about marketing, I left with this feeling of unease in my belly.

My mentor suggested I eliminate anything from my website, my marketing, and my work that is not directly related to selling my copywriting services. Because that's what makes money; that's what prospective clients want to see.

And he is right. That's how a business makes money inside our current systems. Pick one thing, preferably the most lucrative, and “optimize” that thing until you can’t anymore.

And yet.

My work for other people, while I enjoy it immensely, is not the only thing I’d like to highlight - on my website or otherwise.

Instead of embracing LIFE, I make sure I don’t enjoy things “too much,” just in case I have to quickly prepare for losing everything and enveloping myself inside grief.

And god, it’s exhausting.

I understand (intellectually) that it’s not about “losing” so much as “cycling through” what naturally comes from LIFE: change, transition, then death. I understand (intellectually) that we cannot have life without these things.

I just didn’t realize how desperately afraid of death (and life) I’ve become.

And who would have thought that I’d travel 200 miles to realize all this? To realize, too, that I have everything I want and need within the life I’m already living.