Forced Off The Path

It’s happened to all of us. 

We’re walking along, oblivious, perhaps whistling, thinking that tomorrow will be relatively the same as yesterday, and suddenly, inexplicably, there’s this huge rock blocking our path.

We have choices, of course.  We can stand and look at it, curse it, wish it away, refuse to believe it’s there, even go back the way we came -– but ultimately, if we want to find the path again, we have only two choices.  We either climb over it or go around it.

I’ve realized that in life, I’m a “go around it” kind of person.  I know plenty of “climb over it” people -– “high-energy, love-a-challenge, bring-it-on” sorts of people, but that’s not really me. 

First I stand open-mouthed in some naïve disbelief, then I sit down and have a long think.  Sometimes it requires a good cry, some bruised fists, yelling, or even a fitful sleep right there in the road.  But sooner or later, I know I have to move.

Your rocks might look like mine –- broken heart, dear one’s death, paralyzing disappointment, lost job, failed test, missed opportunity, disappeared friend, hasty word -– rocks take so many forms, but they all behave the same. They stop you in your tracks for a time.

But I’ve realized there’s a whole undiscovered world in that soft earth to the left and the right of the hard-packed, well-worn thoroughfare.  In fact, some people spend their whole lives out there. They got pushed off the path, and liked it so much that they never went back.  Imagine!

When I was in high school, I was on the drill team.  I spent my first years moving up the ranks and fully expected to take my Captain’s test, pass it, and wear that extremely cute uniform at football games and pep rallies for my senior year.

During my test, we were given the command to turn right, and I turned left instead. 

It was a boneheaded mistake, brought on by unexpected nervousness and the size of the gallery watching –- but the result was that I had committed to the move and had to finish it.  So the group of girls I was testing with all went one way in the huge gym, and I went the other, alone.

HUGE rock.

Needless to say, I wasn’t chosen as one of the Captains.  I spent the first part of my senior year watching the girls who knew left from right, marching in their cute uniforms and feeling my life was essentially never going to be really good again.  (Admittedly, I was a bit of a dramatic teenager.)

But a strange thing happened.  Once I reconciled myself to the fact that what was done was done, I began to encounter that world that lay outside my expectations.  I spent Saturdays driving up the coast to Malibu with friends instead of sweating through marching practice in the hot sun.  Football games could now be enjoyed full-view from the stands instead of from the flat expanse of the field.  With more time at my disposal, I joined Girl’s League and discovered a life-long love of volunteering.

I’ll try not to get carried away with the metaphor (though I fear I already may have) and say that the spongy, sweet-smelling ground off the path has unique and fragrantly colorful flowers -- but I will say that in my life since then, every rock, no matter how terrible it initally seemed, has come with gifts.

I wonder sometimes –- if I had I turned right that day, would I be different now?  Probably. Would my life be better? Worse?  Who knows?  I only know that I don’t regret that missed turn anymore.  I was stepping off into who I am today.

So I try to bless the rocks and put on my hiking shoes a little faster than I used to.  And I try to remember that sometimes the way off the path is the path itself.

~~~~~

TED Talk: How To Write and Stay Sane

TED Talk: A New Way to Think About Creativity
by Elizabeth Gilbert


The author of "Eat, Pray, Love" talks about the double-edged sword of a bestselling novel.... "Aren't you afraid that now, you'll fail?"  


Keeping our focus intact in the face of success...

☆*♥☆♥*☆

A Fresh Start

I take an almost childlike pleasure in new, fresh notebooks with their blank sheets of paper waiting to be filled.  The first day of vacation is my favorite, with all the days stretched out ahead, full of promise and freedom.  I hold my breath during the moment in the theater when the lights go down and the curtain goes up, in the hush of anticipation.

I love fresh starts.

Why, then, this refusal to take part in the most iconic fresh start that exists –- the day that seems to cry out for innovation, for reinventing oneself, for swapping out the old bad habits for the bright and shiny new ones?

I’m not certain when I stopped making New Years’ resolutions, but at some point the ratio of “Guilt:Success” must have overwhelmed me.  I suppose the process went from fun and whimsical to an exercise in disappointment, and I simply stopped.

Everyone knows that diets can only start on Mondays, right?  Interesting then, that my most successful ones have started, say, in the middle of the day on a Thursday.  I quit smoking, after years of First-of-the-Month Monday resolutions, at a time and on a day that I can’t honestly remember -- sometime in August before my 50^th birthday.

I know this may make me sound rather curmudgeonly and dark, like someone who refuses to believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.  The truth is that most people who know me would characterize me as an absurdly hopeful person.  I’m someone who believes that good can come from the most surprising places and in wonderfully unexpected ways.

It may seem like a non sequitur, but I’d like to share a snippet I took away from a lovely little book written by the Dalai Lama, called “The Art of Happiness.”  I’m not quoting here, and he may not have actually written this in so many words, but as I said, it’s what I took away from the reading -- and I love it so much that I’m not even going to look it up, as it might ruin it for me.

I believe he said that we all have the choice, every morning, of waking up and thinking of those who have more than we have, and being unhappy about it –- or of thinking of those who have less than we have, and being grateful.  In short, happiness is a choice we make every moment of every day.

For me, resolutions are the same.  This year, I suppose my resolution is to throw caution to the wind and decide in the middle of the month on a Wednesday at 3 p.m., that I’ll carve out more time for writing.  Or that I’ll eat more vegetables, appreciate my husband more, find more joy in work, or call my mother more often.

I’ll make choices, every moment of every day, to be happy.  In that way, every moment is a fresh start.

And I do love fresh starts.

~~~~~

Writing For the Love of It

Once when I was expounding… (perhaps I was obsessing)…about someone who owed me money, my dear and sensible husband said, “What if you tried giving money to someone with no intention of getting it back? Just give it with love. That’s what I do. Then if it does come back, it’s a gift.”

(When I’m obsessing, that’s really not what I want to hear, by the way.  I want commiseration, sympathy, or at the very least, a “tut” or two.  But Robert has always been better at making his way through the real world than I’ve been.  When I’m smart, I listen to him.)

Since then, I’ve found that before handing over my hard-earned cash, I ask myself if I would resent never getting it back.  I can’t express how much it’s helped, because I let the money go without strings, or I don’t let it go at all. 

(And the important thing for me to remember about strings is that they’re not only tied to the other person -– they’re tied to me as well, and sometimes I get tangled up in them, while the other person walks blithely away, whistling.)

Yes, I’m getting to the point…about writing.

I wonder if the name “author” is only reserved for those who get paid for it -- or if it’s possible to be an author while giving it away, without strings.

(You see, I can’t seem to stop writing, no matter how little I get paid for it.) 

A novel-and-three-quarters written, and starting on a third.  Not only have I been paid next to nothing, but I’ve actually spent a little printing books to give to friends.  And I don’t regret a penny of it.  In fact, it felt really, well…good.

So, if we put a value on our writing –- and I do –- then as we blog, and post, and price books at 99¢, we’re giving gifts.

No regrets.  No expectations.  No strings.  Just for the love of writing.   

(Don't get me wrong...if someone handed me a big check right now, I wouldn't be turning them away...)

But really, I do love to write.  For the love of it.

~~~~~

To Remind Myself Of What I Already Know

“Try to pick the pen up off the table.”

The unlucky one is the first to raise her hand. The one who is certain that this time, no matter how many seminar exercises have shown her up before…THIS time, she’s got it nailed…

Triumphant, she leaps up and goes to the front of the room.  In one swift move, she picks up the pen and holds it at eye level for the coach to see.  Some heads tilt in the watching crowd.  They’re waiting, wary.

The leader’s voice, in its smoothness, betrays the fact that this was his expected result.   He speaks gently, as if to a child.  “No. You picked up the pen.  I said to TRY to pick up the pen.”

Her smile evaporates, and the critic inside her speaks reprovingly.  She sighs, and smiles, and fights the urge to say aloud the words that should have materialized just seconds before she raised her hand. 

“Try not.  Do... or do not.  There is no try.”

And then the critic says, shaking its little critical head,  Well, you can at least be glad you didn’t quote Yoda out loud…

Again, the coach says, this time, with just a trace of slightly sadistic glee,  “Try to pick the pen up off the table.”

The ensuing pantomime is inevitably comical.  The pen seems to be glued, fused to the table.  No matter how hard she tries, it will not budge. 

Some of the laughter from the audience, it must be said, is due to relief that they hadn’t been foolish enough to raise their hands.  But a person trying and failing to do something, repeatedly, no matter how hard they struggle, hits home.

After a time, the coach has mercy on the pupil.  He says softly, “Now. Pick up the pen.”

As the pen rises again, the sigh from all involved is audible.

Success.  Thanks, Yoda…

~~~~~