My Priceless Life

I received a forwarded email today, Friday the 13th, from a friend. The opening words were, “If you don’t share this with at least 2 friends, you’ll have a year of bad luck.” I didn’t even bother to read it. Whatever it had to say, I wasn’t interested. As far as I’m concerned, a threat trumps any value the message might have conveyed.  My reaction to such manipulative tactics is always anger, and I’m not apologetic for it, either. Here’s why:

When my son was 3 years old, a college friend of mine sent me a chain letter. It contained a warning that if I broke the chain, something terrible would happen to me. It went on to describe in detail some “examples” of the sort of horrible things that befell those who did not forward the chain letter: death, illness, bankruptcy, to name but a few. When I finished reading, I crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash. I was outraged that a friend of mine would try to coerce me into getting involved in some kind of scam by such underhanded means.

A few months later my little boy was striken with leukemia.

For years I considered that breaking the chain letter may have been one of many unprovable, but possible, causes of my son’s illness. Eventually, he recovered and I got over my irrational guilt trip, but when I receive any emails that contain a warning like that, I delete them right away on principle. Realizing how viciously manipulative the letter was, I routinely ignore and oppose any and all messages that threaten some kind of retribution, regardless of how valuable or innocuous the message.

A threat invalidates anything worthwhile. It’s a low down and dirty tactic. Why would you need to threaten someone to make them forward good advice? If it’s that good, rest assured, it will be all around the globe in a matter of minutes!

The end of one year and the beginning of another signifies leaving behind the old to embark on a journey into the unknown. For some, shedding what we know and identify with is a daunting, if not downright scary proposition. Many of my fellow baby boomers frequently send me nostalgic emails that are a medley of the wonderful icons of our youth–The Mouseketeers, The Beatles, Elvis, Hula Hoops–the list goes on and on. They opine the loss of “the good old days,” although for anyone who doesn’t suffer from selective memory, the old days had plenty of not-so-good things that I’m glad are gone–McCarthyism, big hair, lynch mobs, and 8 Tracks, to name but a few.

2008 was the year we voted for CHANGE, and I’d like to see Boomers, along with their younger fellow citizens, step up to the plate and embrace the new, and sometimes scary, present and future. It’s a great idea to “make new friends, but keep the old” like a song I remember from MY good old days. No need to ditch The Beatles to listen to a new rock band, or throw out your cherished collection of vinyl while downloading iTunes to your mp3 player. Hang onto the old, but welcome the new. I hear too many boomers dissing new technologies, new ideas, saying “I’m too old to change. This is how I’ve always done it.”

“Yes I Can” applies to those of us over 45, too.

When I was 15 years old, an outspoken young friend of mine said to me, “Not everyone is going to like you. no matter how nice you are.” I was shocked. How could it be that no matter how hard I tried and no matter what I did to achieve what I thought was perfection, it might not assure my approval rating?

If you apply that lesson to success in the social arena at large–not just friendships, but also ventures undertaken alone, or business and career pursuits–success is not necessarily determined by whether you do more, better.

We have become conditioned to condemn ourselves and blame “failure” on our not doing or being enough, so It would be wise to take my friend’s insight to heart. Not everyone will be pleased with who you are and how you show up in the world, but the truly great ones–the ones we remember and admire most–show up real, like it or not.

My niece witnessed an older woman in the supermarket checkout line deliberately turning a magazine to hide the cover photo of President-elect Obama. The woman who flipped the magazine around said nothing to explain her strange behavior. Was it a silent protest against a Democrat winning the election? An African-American?

I found this story very disturbing: there are undoubtedly many more people secretly harboring resentment over the results of our recent Presidential election. What happens when you can’t talk about feelings, when you are afraid your feelings are unpopular or put you in danger? Some of us have known that fear for the past eight years. Now we have the opportunity to once again speak freely, but how comfortable can we really feel expressing ourselves when there are plenty of people like the woman in the checkout line getting angrier in silence day by day?

The story of the lady in the checkout line was disturbing, yes. It reminded me that I, you, we — all of us need to examine our fears. Don’t silence them so they grow insidiously. Give them a voice and listen to how ridiculous our own fears sound. Then give them up, lest they destroy us all.

After writing for 28 days, at least 3 hours every day, I am wrung out, but thrilled to have created a novel out of thin air.

As I think back over the story I see how each of the plot lines and characters contain elements of myself. All of the issues I’ve tackled are fragments of thoughts that have been busy little ants building hills for years in my head. Like the football-sized anthills forming a path across the dry lake bed I pass on my daily walks, these themes teeming with my own thoughts arrange themselves like giant footprints across the pages I have just written.

Once I sit down to read, analyze and ultimately revise my 52,000+ words, I will be looking at each anthill under a microscope, looking for the trails and the tunnels my thoughts have created and then followed line by line, paragraph by paragraph and page by page until the final words, The End.

My mind, like a community of industrious ants, has gathered and sorted and built from tiny grains of sand, and like those itty-bitty, but productive ants, I know now that I can start with the smallest idea, just a word really, and create a structure with purpose and direction.

Around 15 years ago I met a cute guy who owned a small town newspaper. I admit, I wanted to impress him, and since I wasn’t the only woman vying for his attention, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to dust off my writing skills and submit an article he might find worthy of publishing. Much to my delight, he called me after reading the article and said, a little surprised I think, “You’re a writer!” He also published the article.

While my plan to win him over romantically didn’t succeed, I gained something far more valuable than an LTR. From that day on, after years of dabbling in writing creatively, I actually began to think of myself as a writer. When people would ask me what I did, even though I worked as a telemarketer or an administrative assistant, I would say, “I’m a writer.” I went to writers’ conferences, read my poetry in coffee houses, and participated in workshops and literary events with writers whom I respected.

When I recently found out after all these years that this gentleman was writing his first novel and already had an agent, I thought, “Hey, I’m a writer, too. Why aren’t I writing a novel?” I didn’t have a reason to impress him anymore, but because he was the first to acknowledge me as a writer, I felt compelled to show him if he could become a novelist at our age, I could certainly give it a try.

Enter NaNoWriMo. It was the perfect opportunity to challenge myself to complete a rough draft without knowing a thing about actually writing a novel. It was such a hair-brained idea, I could not think of a reason not to do it!

Now it very well may turn out that he sells his novel and goes on to become rich and famous, or not. And it may turn out that all I ever accomplish is putting together a story of 50,000 or so words and never get it published, or maybe I’ll get published and become rich and famous. But the really important point here is that just as it was 15 years ago when I started thinking of myself as a writer, I am now thinking of myself as a novelist.

They say a habit takes 21 days to take root. I’ve been noveling for 18 days, so in just three more days, I will officially be a novelist. I dare anyone to tell me I’m not. I will never think of myself in quite the same way again.

I am writing Chapter 8 of my 30-day novel and wondering why I haven’t written a word of dialogue yet. Being an essayist and poet, I don’t have much occasion to write dialogue, so I consult one of several books with which I’ve surrounded myself in the past couple of weeks to “teach” me how to write a novel. Remember, I’ve never attempted to write a novel before. I’ve read plenty of them in the past 50 years, particularly in the genre I’m trying to write, but I’ve never thought I could pull off the feat of writing one myself.

So now I’m drowning in self-doubts. Maybe I can’t (I know, I HATE that word, but it keeps creeping up on me) write dialogue. I need immediate remedial dialogue-writing help. I don’t have any novels I’m currently reading and I’m in temporary quarters so my library of favorites is on the other side of the country. I don’t have TIME to read anything right now, anyway. What to do?

There is only one thing to do. Just write it. And so, finally reaching a point in the narrative where I feel comfortable putting two characters in a place where they might actually speak to one another, I am forcing myself to write dialogue…by the seat of my pants.

And guess what? I CAN DO THIS THING! I can write dialogue, and it’s not pointless. It moves the scene and gives additional dimension to the characters and showcases their emotional state and their relationship…and…and…

I’m exhausted. I’m flying. I’m sailing down the hill on a sled or a two-wheeler for the first time. I’m walking on two feet instead of crawling on hands and knees. I’m doing it instinctively.

Surprise! I guess I’ve been able to do it all along. All I had to do was start.

I admit it. I’m one of those people who has spent her whole life composing novels in her head and never writing one. I even try to live my life as if it were a novel. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I do write. I’ve even been published (aside from these blogs), but the idea of spending months or even years working on a full-length novel (as many well-known authors have confessed to doing) really holds no appeal for a poet and essayist. I like something I can complete in one or two sittings. So when I heard about NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a complete rough draft of a novel during the month of November, my first reaction was to dismiss the idea of wanting to write a novel in the first place. After all, if I don’t want to write one, why consider writing one in 30 days? That’s 29 days and 22 hours more than it takes me to write anything else!

But I had to admit to myself that it was always a secret ambition of mine to compete with all those overachieving writer friends of mine who have at least one novel to their names. So finally, after all these years of wimping out in the novel department, I decided to give it a go, not having much training on how to write something as complex and important as a novel.  About all I knew was that I’d need to research characters and settings about which I knew little, and create a plot out of thin air. Well, NaNoWriMo makes all that seem like needless worry. As Chris Baty, the founder wrote, No Plot, No Problem.

I am now having a blast spinning gold (well, maybe not gold yet, but something) out of nothing. The characters and plot are evolving, talking their way out of my head to my finger tips, to the keys and onto the screen. I can’t wait to hit the computer every evening and type for 3 hours, just to see how it’s going to turn out. It’s like reading a book that hasn’t been written yet. Oh wait! I’m the one waving my wand and watching the paragraphs grow into chapters! I feel like a sorcerer!

I recently read a post from another life coach that made a case against expending time and thought to uncover your life’s purpose. Her main argument is that we all have life purposes, often more than one, but if we waste time trying to discover what they are, we waste our lives, period. In other words, just get moving and you’ll be following the path of your purpose…it happens naturally.

I’ve been pondering her post for a few days. It challenged me, and I had a strong reaction to it, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was just my ego reacting because I had recently written an article extolling the benefits of uncovering one’s life purpose. My point was that if you struggle with decision-making, it is easier to evaluate competing options by measuring them against the standard of your life purpose. Which decision aligns you with your reason for being, if you will? If you know where you are going, but are momentarily “lost,” you can get out the compass of your life purpose and find your way again.

The argument she made, however, was interesting in that if you just stop agonizing over where you are going and follow your instincts, you are bound to naturally end up somewhere you will ultimately benefit from being. I can see that, because I believe that whatever you encounter in life, it’s an opportunity for growth and learning. Sooner or later you stop in a town that feels enormously familiar and if you are open to possibilities, not limited by a narrow view of “this is my purpose; this is who I am,” then you may frequently discover new and remarkable places to explore in your life.

But what do we mean when we talk about life purpose, anyway? On a very basic biological level it is nothing more than to survive and procreate. As a species, we have done that quite well–all too well–and often at the expense of each other, as well as everything else on this planet. It does not require any conscious thought to follow our biological imperative and find a way to continue our existence, no matter the cost or sacrifice. It does, however, take conscious effort to consider the consequences of our biological imperative, which brings us to the spiritual, or at least philosophical, question of why we are here, beyond the mere fact of our existence and instinct to survive as a species.

It’s true that there is no need to ask this question in order to keep traveling through life, but if we don’t stop to consider, “What is my life purpose?” can we ever really say that we are “in choice’ about the myriad of options we face moment to moment?

I just received a forwarded email from a friend on the East Coast. It’s a series of photos showing all of the “fun” employee-oriented perks at Google headquarters: “decompression capsules,” slides that take you from one floor to another, pool tables and video games, massage chairs, a cozy library, only 4-6 people per work area and other amenities that, I guess, make the rest of the country’s employees green with envy. The conclusion of the email asks, “When do they work?” and “How much do the employees pay to work there?”

Few could argue that Google is just pampering its employees.  These “perks” are just a few of the ways Google encourages the creative productivity that has made it great at what it does. It’s one of the finest examples today that the American Dream is still alive and doing well.

While living and working in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to visit a number of different offices in the tech and marketing industries. In creative industries, they recognize the need to give all employees an environment in which the ideas flow, because you never know where, when and from whom an innovative idea will emerge.