Cool It Off Before You Burn It Out
Billy Joel wrote Vienna for me, specifically. Not really, but that song speaks to me in such a specific way that it’s almost suspicious. I’m a girl with big dreams and little to no idea how to achieve them. The truth is, the future scares me, a lot. My greatest fear is that I will get to the end of my life and look back to see that it was unremarkable.
I found Vienna in June of 2020. The height of the pandemic, I was sitting in my backyard at dusk and listening to music from some random Spotify playlist when the dreamy piano chords began to play. I heard the first line:
Slow down you crazy child
You’re so ambitious for a Juvenile
But then if you’re so smart tell me,
Why are you still so afraid?
In that moment I felt as if Billy Joel was staring into my soul. As someone who relies on her intelligence and wit, I felt called out. Up until that point, I was pretty much banking on the idea that I could talk my way into achieving my goals if necessary. But oh, am I so afraid. The fear of not succeeding, with no legacy to leave behind, plagues me. Maybe it’s because i’m an enneagram 4w3, or maybe its just how my brain is hard-wired. Either way, June of 2020 exacerbated it all. At this point of my life every hope, fear, and anxiety was swirling around my head in a tornado of doubt and frustration. This song found me at just the right time.
At the time, I was spending so much time worrying that I wasn’t doing enough, that somehow, life was going to pass me by and I wouldn’t even get the opportunity to live. Vienna took me in and told me that I was going to be okay. So often we waste our lives trying to satisfy the urge to succeed that we forget to enjoy the journey. Truth is, I will never be satisfied, I will always want more. If I’m truly honest with myself I don’t see a future where I won’t want to reach the next milestone and continue to achieve more and more. So why am I putting a time limit on something that won’t even fulfill me? I was rushing my whole life away, and the funniest thing is that it was all in my head! I was wasting so much mental energy just thinking about how I hadn’t done enough.
The second line: “you gotta cool it off before you burn it out,” made me realize that at the rate I was going, my dreams would drain me before I ever got to the good part. I had to slow down. That doesn’t mean that I stopped being a dreamer, it’s a fundamental part of who I am, but relishing in the journey is what’s going to make it that much sweeter when I cross that finish line. I needed to slow down and allow myself to find joy in the now. I have an entire life ahead of me, why on earth should I waste it away at the beginning? I will achieve great things… eventually. I’ve allowed myself to trust the process because now I know that Vienna waits for me.
