The Things I Can Do (But Really Don’t Want To)

By Kristi Cruise

I can do a lot of things. I can color-code a spreadsheet, write a grant proposal, build a website, manage a board meeting, and respond to seventy-two emails before breakfast. I can even fake enthusiasm while updating an Excel tab called “Pending Follow-Ups.”

But let me be clear: I loathe operations.
Like, deep-soul, energy-vacuum, “please let this be over soon” loathe.

It’s funny, really, because somehow I do more of it now than ever. My days are an endless carousel of calendars, approvals, and tasks that multiply when I look away. Somewhere in the middle of all this productivity, my inner artist is waving a little white flag.

I remember my high school swim coach, Mrs. Cullen, once told me I was a “jack of all trades, master of none.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I can survive in almost any situation — smile through chaos, fill in for anyone, and duct-tape broken systems together until they look like modern art. But thriving? That’s another story.

Operations are like chlorine: necessary, but not something I want to swim in all day.

And it’s funny — it’s taken me this many years of life to finally realize what truly excites me and what completely drains me. There’s something liberating about naming it out loud, like handing back a job description you never applied for.

These days, I’m choosing creativity over control. Flow over friction. The ripple over the routine.


Kristi Cruise in Green Dress showing her book to a fan
Because I can do a lot of things — but only a few make me feel fully alive.

These days, I’m TRYING to choose creativity over control. Flow over friction. The ripple over the routine. Emphasis on trying. 
I can do a lot of things — but only a few make me feel fully alive. One day, hopefully soon, I'll be successful enough to offload all of my operational tasks. That will be the day and I'll power through until that day arrives. Then I'll know; I've made it. Then I will simply...create.

What about you?
What do you love — and what do you loathe — at this point in your life?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Warp Speed: When Life Stops Playing by the Rules of Time

Image
 By Kristi Cruise This picture was taken six years ago. And in true cliché fashion—it feels like just yesterday. But not because time is passing normally. Because lately, time feels like it's collapsing . Every week feels like a month. Every month feels like a chapter I used to live over the course of years. My life has been moving at warp speed —and I don’t say that casually. It’s as if the universe is compressing a decade of growth into a single, breathless season. And the truth is... I think I’m in it. A full-body upgrade. An awakening. A timeline collapse. All of it. Some days I feel like I’m grieving and birthing at the same time. Like I’m being dismantled and rebuilt in the same breath. Old stories falling away like ash, New identities not yet fully formed—just flickers and fog. But still, I create. Still, I show up. Still, I write and teach and love and mother and try. Because this isn’t just ordinary living anymore. This is a  full-spectrum existe...
Read more
Image
  There’s a Better Way to Read: Why I Created LiYo Literacy Yoga Fusion® By: Kristi Cruise It came to me like a lightning bolt. The same kind of sudden, full-body knowing that struck when I first dreamed up what would become Promising Pages years earlier. But this time, it was 2021—the heart of the COVID lockdown—and the spark was different. Schools were closed. Kids were home. And from what I could tell… many of them weren’t reading. So I sent my first book, The LiLi Key , out into the world. We mailed hundreds of copies—all over the country, from Hawaii to Guam to living rooms tucked into small-town America. All I asked in return was a book report. Some kind of reflection. A sign that the story had landed. And it did. In fact, something incredible happened. The feedback came pouring in—not just from kids, but from parents, too. Children were reading longer, deeper, and with more focus. A follow-up survey showed something astonishing: kids were reading 50% more —just from...
Read more

Why I Do This (Literacy Innovation) Work

Image
  Why I Do This (Literacy Innovation) Work By: Kristi Cruise If we’ve just met, you might know me as the woman behind the books that flip, a.k.a. the "book lady," the literacy activator, innovator, the one with the golden Keys. Maybe you saw me on the news once a million years ago. Perhaps you’ve heard about Living Libraries, a reading yoga that helps kids focus on literacy, or my first literacy rodeo known as Promising Pages. Or maybe you’ve stumbled here by divine accident. Whatever the case is, I want you to know something: This work more than a brand. It’s my life’s breath. I don’t do this because I love books (though I do). I don’t do it just for the kids (though they’re everything). I do it because I believe, in the depths of my being, that a better world is possible — and I’ve seen how story can be the spark. I’ve seen what happens when a child who’s never loved reading opens one of our books and smiles. I’ve felt the stillness when a class tries a LiYo Litera...
Read more