Lena Dunham has shared an impassioned Instagram post about the pressure of “trying” that comes with a new year.
The creator of Girls posted on New Year’s Day, explaining to her followers how she had grown increasingly irked by “the language we use to describe our efforts”.
It appeared that her comments were in part inspired by an encounter with a woman at the pharmacy “in that glowy quiet after Christmas”.
Dunham recalled seeing the woman turn to her “holding both the [nicotine] patches and lozenges she had bought, smiled sheepishly and said, ‘You’ve gotta try, right?’
“That does seem to be the spirit of this holiday, waking up not only to a new year but a new you, transformed from the inside out,” Dunham wrote. “You’ve gotta try, right? But I’ve been dogged by a feeling, as real as any of the parts of myself I ‘should’ be remodeling: I’m so f***ing sick of trying.”
She continued: “I’m not sick of doing, or being, or any other action verbs. But I’m sick of *trying*... the word that evokes a hamster wheel, running and running only to find yourself still here, still stuck or in pain or in fear. Still just trying. Trying to be sunny but not cloying, healthy but not obsessive, honest but not offensive, trusting but not gullible. I’ve tried to be tidy but still express myself, powerful but non-threatening, loyal but not a lap-dog, enlightened without sounding like a self-help book.”
The 36-year-old called for a change in perspective, suggesting that this could start with the language people use to describe their attempts.
“By the metric of trying, I failed,” she said of her 2022. “But if I’m just being, then it’s a dance. It’s back and forth, in and out, possible and impossible. And it’s all part of it. Yes, 2023, you can have this dance.”
Many of Dunham’s followers applauded her attitude.
“Love all of this,” wrote actor Rita Wilson, while Dunham’s husband, musician Luis Felber, commented: “Wisest words my heart.”
Melissa Joan Hart, who was recently involved in the subject of feud rumours with Dunham, remarked: “I’ll share that ‘dance’ with you in 2023! Happy New Year!”
