Navigating 2025 and Beyond
Looking for your wisdom, guidance and advice
Two weeks into our vacation down under, I wrote to you about the immediate liberation I felt from stepping away from social media. Now, as we settle back into our humdrum routines after a 21-day digital detox, I find myself grappling with deeper questions that this extended period of presence has stirred.
What started as a simple experiment in staying present has evolved into something far more profound. Those initial days of resisting the urge to document every moment is gradually giving way to a fundamental shift in how I sit with the ideas of “success,” “purpose,” and the very nature of “meaningful work.”
While I had vowed not to work on this trip, I did cut up 300 watercolor blanks at home to take with us. Because painting these little tokens of love isn’t work for me. Because I thought if we actually ended up conversing with and touching 300 lives on this three-week vacation, it would feel monumental (and it did)!
Well, as it turned out, when intentionality meets kindness, 300 tokens isn’t nearly enough.
Two days before our return flight, I found myself at Typo, a stationery and gift shop in Auckland, making an emergency watercolor pad purchase.
Sammy, the clerk, was taken aback when I asked her name. “Relax,” I told her. “I’m writing your name down because I have something nice to give you.”
The 20-something brunette’s eyes lit up as she sighed with relief and looked lovingly at the watercolor blooms. “This is the last one from my original stash,” I said. “And thanks to you, I can continue painting more!”
“So, you just hand these out to folks?” she asked. “I sure do…and I collect smiles in return,” I said with a grin.
“That’s brilliant!” she exclaimed as she turned to share my painting with her colleague.
In that moment, as in others throughout this trip, the realization came back to me that what seems so natural — this giving of art, this collecting of smiles — might actually be something quite rare and valuable in its own right.
Whether it was Sacha, a native New Zealander who took us on a day trip to Milford Sound … or Ethan, the shy redhead at the farm, who cleared our tables after what can only be described as the most sumptuous high-tea experience in Queenstown … or Trudy who tearfully told me it was the first time someone had written her a note of gratitude in 38 years of being a stewardess — their surprised and grateful reactions reminded me over and over of what truly matters in this one short life we take for granted. And no, it’s neither fame nor money.
It’s how we make people feel.
What began as simple gestures of gratitude have transformed into profound moments of connection over the years. But on this trip, especially, they made me question everything I thought I knew about the value of my work.
I love giving away my art more than selling it. There’s something pure about watching someone’s face light up when they receive an unexpected gift, something that feels more valuable than any amount in my bank account ... something that doesn’t come — can not come — with a price tag.
In all honesty, I’ve been dancing around this truth and have struggled with this revelation because it doesn't fit neatly into the entrepreneurial box I thought I needed to check.
The timing of this realization feels particularly complex.
Here I am, on the cusp of launching my book “Little Tokens of Love, Big Ripples of Happiness,” choosing to withdraw from social media and deliberately stepping back from traditional marketing approaches.
Just months ago, I made the difficult decision to shut down my membership community — a space I had created with such hope and vision. While the monthly workshops and heartfelt connections were beautiful, I found myself stretched impossibly thin, trying to show up fully for everyone while my back literally screamed “enough.”
That experience had taught me something crucial: there’s a profound difference between moving forward and rushing headlong into burnout. This vacation validated that decision and is prompting me to reflect deeper.
From a business perspective, it seems counterintuitive, perhaps even self-sabotaging. The voices of conventional wisdom whisper that I’m making a mistake, that this is precisely when I should be doubling down on my online presence, crafting the perfect marketing strategy, and positioning myself as a “thought leader” in my space.
For years, I have used my daughter’s severe allergies as a shield, an excuse for why I wasn’t “hustling” harder in my art business. But I have to confess, more to myself than to you, that wasn’t the whole truth.
The simple reality is that I genuinely enjoy spending time with her – I always have, at every stage of her growth.
And now, as she is almost a teenager, I still do. I loved her snuggles back then as much as I love the heated debates we have almost daily. I loved carrying her around in a toddler backpack just as much as I love hiking in the woods with her now. I loved experiencing her firsts when she was a toddler … and on this trip we experienced so many firsts together.
Why should I apologize for that? Why should I feel shame for wanting to ensure I make the time to savor these moments?
Add to this the joy I find in long walks with my pup — my fur baby — who fills a space in my heart that no human could … who routinely paws down my laptop shut if I’ve been on it longer than an hour … who is so much more of a caregiver to me than I am to him. My days feel rich with meaning, if not with traditional measures of success.
Perhaps what I’m really grappling with is the season of life I’m in. While these might be my “prime earning years” according to conventional wisdom, they’re also my prime parenting years — my last chances to be fully present for my daughter’s childhood.
Maybe it’s not about having it all right now, but about recognizing that different seasons of life call for different priorities?
The struggle I face cannot be unique to me – it’s a tension, I believe, many women grapple with … particularly those of us privileged enough to have choices.
We’re told we can have it all, but what does “all” really mean? I find myself in this strange limbo: too ambitious to be content with being “just” a homemaker, yet too resistant to conventional success metrics to throw myself fully into the entrepreneurial arena.
I have dreams, yes, but they don’t align with the standard playbook of scaling up, maximizing profit, and optimizing every aspect of life for productivity. I’ve experienced firsthand the cost of trying to do it all — the physical toll of stretching myself too thin, the emotional drain of trying to show up perfectly in every space.
I’m fortunate that my husband never makes me feel like a “dependent,” but the internal struggle persists.
Society has a way of making women feel that if we’re not financially independent, we’re somehow failing at modern womanhood. It’s a peculiar burden to bear … this guilt about being supported while simultaneously questioning whether the pursuit of financial independence at the cost of personal fulfillment is worth it.
Perhaps I’m spoiled for not wanting to conform to the 9-to-5 grind. But this choice runs deeper than mere preference — it’s a conscious reaction to my own childhood.
My mother worked full-time, and while she provided financial stability, the cost was her presence. Those empty after-school hours, the missed school events, the brief exchanges before bedtime — they shaped my understanding of what I didn’t want for my own child.
I inherited her work ethic but chose to apply it differently: to the craft of presence, to the art of being there.
And yet, I worry. The example I’m setting for my daughter is complex: a mother who prioritizes presence over professional achievement, who values connection over conventional success.
My parents once dismissed my dreams of being a writer and artist, pushing me toward more financially secure paths — just as their parents had done to them, perpetuating a cycle born of love and fear.
Now I find myself in a similar position, wanting my daughter to pursue her dreams of being happy while ensuring she can stand on her own feet. Will she think I wasted my life? Children whose moms work full time turn out just fine after all... The irony isn't lost on me, nor is the weight of breaking generational patterns.
What I am grappling with most is this: is there a middle path? One that acknowledges that being a human being matters more than being a human doing? I’ve learned the hard way — through strained muscles and sleepless nights — that my body has its own wisdom about what’s sustainable and what isn’t.
I’ve never been comfortable with the traditional metrics of business success – the endless drive for growth, the pressure to monetize every interaction, the push to transform authentic connections into “networking opportunities.”
I find myself wondering if it’s okay to say, “This is enough.”
But what does “enough” really look like in a world that constantly demands more? Is writing a book enough even if it doesn’t make any sales? If I launch my book into the world without the typical fanfare of social media campaigns and marketing blitzes, will that be foolhardiness?
Could my belief that “if you build it, they will come” be mere naïveté?
Or could it be wisdom — a recognition that the same quiet, authentic connections that have carried me this far might be exactly what this book needs, too?
Can there be a way to honor both my creative spirit and my desire to contribute meaningfully to my family’s financial wellbeing, without succumbing to the pressure to become a “business person” I’m not?
How do I balance the practical needs of life with the soul-deep satisfaction of giving away art, of creating connections, of being present for the small moments that make up a life well-lived?
My journey feels like a tightrope walk between ambition and contentment, between societal expectations and personal truth. Between wanting to have a presence online, creating more content, sharing YouTube videos, doing live workshops … but also desperately wanting to be present and just quietly amplifying the happiness quotient through real-life connections.
So where do we go from here?
This is where I’d love to turn this monologue into a dialogue.
I’m inviting you — my readers —to become co-creators in charting this path forward.
I’m reaching out to you … not just for encouragement, but for honest feedback and practical wisdom. What do you see as my unique gifts? Where might these tokens of love and collected smiles lead that I haven’t yet imagined?
I’m ready to admit that I may not have the business acumen others do, but perhaps that’s not what the world needs from me anyway. Whether you see potential I might be blind to, or recognize something valuable in this path I’m exploring — I want to hear your perspective.
Drop a comment, share your thoughts. Help me see the possibilities I might be too close to notice. Maybe in our shared wisdom, we’ll find new ways forward that none of us could have imagined alone.
With love and gratitude,
Mansi.
Your words really spoke to me. They took me back to my college days in the 70's and a poster in a restroom in a campus office. It was from Rainer Maria Rilke. “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." I have carried that thought with me through the years as I quickly rush to solutions (human doing mode) instead of accepting the uncertainty and giving it space to teach me (human being mode). He wrote it in his LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET and said this: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” I find this deep wisdom.
I think your tokens of love matter immensely as does this time with your teenage/emerging adult daughter.
I just want to say that handing out these tokens has been an eye-opening experience for me. Not only does it bring joy to the recipient, but it's changing the way I see people. I hope you will continue to inspire us, but I think worrying about the commercial aspects would be a mistake. You should do whatever makes you happy.