As part of my work, I do many things. I work on two podcasts, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, which is the one you’re listening to, and my new podcast with psychotherapist and writer Lori Gottlieb, Since You Asked.

I write two free weekly newsletters, one called “Five Things Making Me Happy” and one called “Secrets of Adulthood.” Please subscribe! I love writing these. I create courses, I create products, I have an app called Happier. 

But my primary identity, and certainly the one that I enjoy most and value most and that is the wellspring for everything else I do, is writing books. 

I love to write. In fact, I’d say that I have to write. It’s certainly true that I’d write even if no one else read what I wrote. I write every day of the year. It’s my tree house and my cubicle.

Separate from actually writing a book, but part of my work as a writer, is going on book tours. I really enjoy book tours—I like the adventure, I like meeting new people, I like going to new bookstores or other venues, and as might suspect, I like talking about my book! I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to do it.

But it’s also true that by the time it hits the shelves, my creative engagement with a book is long past. The work of printing and distributing the book takes many months, so by the time I’m on a book tour, I’m deep in a new project. I’ve talked to many authors about the effort it takes to balance of the demands of the former and the new project—in time, energy, and mental space. It’s tricky. Some writers even hold off starting a new project, because they don’t like to serve two projects at the same time.

I read a funny description of this feeling, in a 2012 interview in the Harvard Business Review with the eminent novelist Ian McEwan. I love McEwan’s work, and I’ve read many of his eighteen published novels.

Reading his observation, it occurred to me that probably many people have a similar feeling about aspects of their own work. There’s the challenge and satisfaction of working on a project, and then, at some later point, after you’ve moved on to other things, you have to return to it—and you feel like you’re working for some former version of yourself.

McEwan said:

The best bit of writing a novel is writing the novel. Then six or nine months later you’re required to schlep around like some guy selling brushes and you become the employee of your former self, who was so happy at his desk, freely dreaming. He’s sending you as his salesman.

I love this phrase, “the employee of your former self!” 

Maybe you signed up for a class that you’re not enjoying, but you feel like you have to continue to attend, to get your money’s worth. Maybe you started a big home project that has turned into a big drag, but you have to finish because otherwise your house won’t be livable. Maybe you agreed to serve on a committee that sounded interesting but turns out to require a lot of drudge work.

You’re an employee of your former self.

It also occurs to me that sometimes, it’s like we’re an employee of our future self! You’re doing work now because your future-self will demand it. You’re making a lot of effort to pack wisely for a long trip. You’re exercising regularly so you’ll be healthier and stronger decades from now. You’re studying for a degree that will give you more career opportunities for the future.

You’re an employee of your future self.

I think this is a very funny and illuminating way to think about things.