The Muck, The Mess, and the Moment We Cut the Dead Weight
A while back, I wrote about the messy middle—that creative swamp we all wade through. Not just in writing, but in life.
Because success isn’t about chasing a spark of inspiration. It’s about holding on long after the desire to achieve the “thing” has died a slow, miserable death. It’s about the voice whispering, Keep going. I know you can’t see the light, but trust me—run your hand along the edges, and you’ll find the way.
Meanwhile, life has other plans: bills, work, family, laundry.
And right now? Life seems hellbent on dragging me deeper.
Not just ankle-deep—this is full-body, boot-sucking, straight-out-of-a-nightmare quicksand. Those old Gen-X PSAs about escaping it? They never mentioned how it chases you, grabs your ankles, and yanks you under when you least expect it.
I won’t sugarcoat it—I’m not always in a good place. Sometimes, the bills, the work, the family, the laundry? They drown right alongside me. And suddenly, it’s not just me stuck in the vortex. It’s everything.
But here’s the one truth I hold onto:
I am not alone.
That’s not me finding comfort in shared misery. It’s me resonating. Because we all end up in the muck. Some of us learn to wade through it. Some of us are flailing. Some of us are sitting there like, Welp, this is fine, while the quicksand swallows our socks.
But the real problem?
We don’t talk about it.
We bottle it up, slap on a grindset mentality, and pretend we’re fine—because admitting we’re stuck feels like failure. But what if we’re not failing? What if we’re just fighting in the wrong direction?
What if instead of adding things to make us successful, we started cutting away everything that doesn’t?
The pointless obligations. The endless distractions. The self-imposed guilt. The energy drains. The people who make everything heavier instead of lighter.
Because maybe the problem isn’t that we need more—more motivation, more discipline, more time, more hustle.
Maybe we need less.
Look, I’d love to say I have this all figured out. That I’m floating effortlessly above the muck like some Zen master who’s unlocked the cheat codes to life. But let’s be real—I’m still in the boat, still bailing out water, still occasionally grabbing onto a freaking anchor before realizing, oh yeah, that’s why I was sinking.
So I’ve stopped taking on the muck. I refuse to let it cling to me, weigh me down, or shape my choices. Instead of being knee-deep, I’m in a boat now. And if you’re anything resembling an anchor? I’m not taking you with me.
Lately, I’ve been setting healthier boundaries—asking myself:
Is this my responsibility?
Is it in my control?
Is it actually a problem, or just noise?
Because here’s the truth:
The muck never stops. Life doesn’t magically get easier. But we get smarter. We get sharper. To take back our time, we need to stop fighting the quicksand and start finding solid ground.
And no, this isn’t some “just think positive and climb out of the muck” nonsense. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be writing this—I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere with my enlightened self, sipping something strong and full of regret.
But I know this much:
If you’re stuck, stop waiting for a miracle. Stop letting it pull you under.
Start cutting. Start rowing. Let’s go.
And if you’ve already figured this out? Throw the rest of us a rope.
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