The Urge to be Everything

Written By : Hannah Corbett

I’ve always envied women who can answer the question “What do you do?” without hesitation. There’s something so polished about it—so resolved. A title that fits neatly into a sentence, a life that reads clearly from the outside. It’s the kind of certainty that feels, at times, almost aspirational. And yet, every few months, like clockwork, I find myself pulled in the exact opposite direction.

It starts as a feeling—subtle at first, then impossible to ignore. An urge to do everything. Not casually, not hypothetically, but deeply, urgently, as if each version of my life is tugging at me all at once. I want to be a writer, not just someone who writes, but someone whose words live somewhere permanent. A full book that someone keeps on their nightstand dog eared, waiting to read again the next day.  I want to be fully immersed in my work as a social media manager, building brands with intention, shaping narratives that feel as thoughtful as they are strategic. I want to grow Havens Magazine into something expansive, something that feels less like a publication and more like a world. And then, almost seamlessly, my mind shifts again, to designing bikinis with my sister, a dream that has lived between summers and conversations for years. To teaching Pilates, not just occasionally, but fully, in a space of my own.

It’s not indecision. It’s desire, multiplied.

And still, the question hovers above my head like a question mark: Which one do I choose?

For so long, we’ve been taught that a life well lived is one that is clearly defined. One path. One focus. One thing to build, day in and day out, until it becomes your identity. There’s comfort in that structure, in the predictability of knowing exactly where your energy goes. But what happens when your truth doesn’t align with that simplicity? When the idea of choosing one thing feels less like clarity and more like a quiet kind of loss?

Because the truth is, my life doesn’t unfold in a straight line. It moves. It shifts. It layers itself in a way that, from the outside, might look chaotic—but from within, feels entirely natural. My days are not built around a single role, but many. I move from client work to content creation, from writing pages of a novel to sketching out ideas for something that doesn’t exist yet. There are moments when my desk is covered in fabric, and others when it’s just my laptop and a blinking cursor. And somewhere in between, I change into workout clothes and step into a Pilates class, becoming a completely different version of myself for an hour.

There is no clean division. Only motion.

Of course, there are moments—quiet ones, usually—where I wonder if it would be easier to simplify. To choose one path, commit to it fully, and allow everything else to fall away. To have a singular focus, a singular answer, a singular definition of success. It’s a tempting thought, if only for the clarity it promises.

But clarity, I’ve realized, isn’t always the same thing as fulfillment.

Because just beneath that question—wouldn’t it be easier?—is another, far more honest one: would I be bored?

And boredom, to me, feels far more dangerous than overwhelm. It feels like stagnation. Like shrinking into a life that doesn’t quite stretch to meet all the things I know I’m capable of holding. I’ve never wanted a life that fits into one lane if it means ignoring everything else that calls to me.

So instead of asking myself to choose, I’ve started allowing myself to build.

Not perfectly. Not all at once. But consistently.

Because when I really look at it, I am already doing the things I once thought I would have to pick between. I am dedicated to my work as a social media manager. I am writing. I am building Havens. I am in the early stages of designing bikinis. I am teaching Pilates, even if it’s just once a week.

It may not look like the final version yet, but it is, undeniably, a beginning.

We often speak about success as though it requires a singular focus—as though the moment something “takes off,” everything else must fall away. But what if that isn’t entirely true? What if there is space, at least for a while, to exist in the in-between? To build multiple things slowly, intentionally, allowing time to reveal which ones expand, which ones evolve, and which ones quietly step aside?

Maybe this feeling—the one that returns every few months, asking for more—isn’t something to resist.

Maybe it’s something to trust.

Because a life doesn’t have to be reduced to one sentence to be meaningful. It doesn’t have to be easily explained to be valid. And it certainly doesn’t have to follow a traditional structure to be successful.

Perhaps the real luxury isn’t in having it all figured out, but in allowing yourself to want more than one thing, and in giving yourself permission to go after it.

Not eventually. Not someday.

But now.