Making hard lessons stick

The hardest lessons to learn are the ones you have to teach yourself. This is because you have to make up your feelings and value systems in a vacuum. Everything that you believe or learn to value is essentially created out of nothing. Everyone is born with an innate personality, but after that we are blank slates.

It doesn't matter if you are surrounded by the smartest, most intellectual people on the planet. It doesn't matter if the greatest teacher or mentor alive comes along. It's up to you to evaluate how their words impact your life. What you allow in is what you have to work with. If you refuse to accept the teacher or if you refuse to understand their words, then what they say is just words bouncing around inside your head.

As long as I can remember from the time I was 9 until now writing has always colored my world. I had a rich fantasy life as a child and young man. That life was filled with my own theme music and peopled by characters that I would loved to have met for real. I made this stuff up to give a sense of purpose to everyday existence.

I wrote stories to please myself. I didn't care if they made sense. I didn't care if they were ever read by anyone else. I just wrote out of the sheer joy of creating worlds and seeing what was happening in them. Sounds simple, right?

You'd think that this is a simple process that after all these years I should still be able to do without much stress. But for some reason, sitting down at the blank page is now a terrifying prospect. It's gotten harder as I've gotten older. I've quit 'as a writer' more times than I can count. Even though I have finished a few pieces and sent them out, I've never placed it higher in my list of priorities than a sometimes hobby. The thing is, I know deep down in my soul that it's supposed to be more.

I've been digging into my heart and head lately trying to work through the bullshit that's keeping me stuck. Although I know I have a long way to go, I've learned a few things and I'm beginning to understand where my problem with writing is. It's encouraging.

Writers use what's called a voice. It's our way of identifying our own spin or way of doing things that works for us as individuals. You can read a Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or Peter Straub novel with no covers and no author credits and tell just who is writing the story based on how they use words. Not one of those three writes like the others. That's voice.

Developing voice takes years and practice. It's easy to tell a beginner from a pro. The beginner sounds and feels like a half dozen other people. You can see elements of everyone he or she has ever read in their text. The pro only sounds like him or her self. I've been told that it takes 1 million words to clear the BS out of your head and begin to write with your own distinctive voice.

With me the struggle has been allowing too many others influence into my own heart and soul. For some reason its easier for me to accept their words as gospel while simultaneously ignoring what I feel, or acting as if I don't have any feelings.

One of the parts of getting clear is getting rid of all the noise in my head. This includes outside sources and my own bullshit that gets in the way.

I mean, lets be real. If I tell stories, or if I don't, it's really no one's business but mine. The only one who can make me ignore what I'm feeling or doing is me. The only one that I need to impress with my writing is me, and I'm the only one that needs to believe that I SHOULD be writing. I realize now that until I am convinced on a cellular level that no one in my immediate family will die, or even starve to death if I spend an hour or two writing I will continue to waffle back and forth like this.

People who are ahead of me at the game of life will read this and go 'Well, that was fucking obvious.' To those people I say 'congratulations' for being smarter, but for me this is a revelation. We all move at different speeds and learn lessons when we learn them. I'm just grateful to have gotten this far. That's the benefit of learning this stuff on my own, it has more of an impact than just having someone tell me.

Maybe now, with practice, it won't be so hard to put words onto paper.

Honest change is just a painful nudge away

Someone suggested something to me that makes so much sense it's sickening.

The thing is, its not immediately apparent why the concept might work.

Lets start at the beginning. Most people make goals according to what they want. They see something, or hear something or feel something and then want to experience it again. They make their plans or create steps designed to bring them to the goal in the shortest amount of time.

Sometimes they make it and sometimes they don't. At our core we are pretty lazy animals. It's one of the reasons that we've created all of these 'modern conveniences'. Every advance in technology has been about making life 'easier' or 'safer'.

But here's the rub, since we are essentially lazy creatures meeting goals is tough if you simply consider only what you want. If you are in a place of comfort and security (relatively) its difficult to break away from that to go out, expend energy and achieve something new.

I think this is why more people fail to achieve their goals. They are 'comfortable' so they don't see a need to pursue new goals.

I was talking with a good friend and she said something that caught my attention because at first glance it appears wrong.

Her way of achieving goals is to consider what she doesn't want and then work towards making sure it doesn't happen.

As an example she decided that she didn't want to be buried in debt any more. She wasn't thinking about next year or even next month. RIGHT NOW her main pain point was that she was in debt and it hurt. When the pain got to be enough that she acted she worked out steps that took her down the path of more than just getting out of debt, she worked out how she could NEVER be in debt again.

Read that last line again.

I didn't say 'would never be in debt again' I said 'COULD never be in debt. She's decided that the pain of being in debt is so strong that she never wants to feel it again. Therefore in her mind whatever she chose to do would have to wipe out debt not only now, but going forward for the rest of her life.

She didn't do it by being positive and all of that shit. She did it because it was worth it not to feel that pain anymore.

I know this probably sounds like common sense to all of you enlightened folks out there, but to me this was nothing short of revelation.

I've tried the positive approach to things. I've listed my goals and set them to timelines. I've worked on the details and even achieved some of the smaller stuff. I've told others about certain goals as a way to 'keep me honest' and do you know what I've achieved?

Jack shit.

Okay, granted I'm not homeless, I have food to eat and my own growing business, but the reality is, if I'd met even half of the goals on the list I created when I was 25 I would be a rich man right now living on my sail boat in South East Alaska eating salmon and crab cakes and watching the sun set into the North Pacific. My money would come from my published novels and screen plays and at this moment I'd be considering whether I was going to sleep on the boat or in my bed at home.

Get the idea? All of that stuff is 'important' to me, but since I'm pretty comfortable where I am, its not important enough to go after with all of my energy. I could probably live out the rest of my life where I am relatively complacent because I'm not in enough pain to change.

But her way of doing things gave me a reality check. Maybe if I really want to change I need to look at the pain that not having my dream is causing me. Even if that pain is subtle and easy to ignore.

We do what we focus on. And if we are comfortable all we focus on is creating more of that comfort. The instant we become uncomfortable things begin to change. It's a physiological thing that's hard wired into us. If we get cold we go somewhere warm or make a fire. You get the idea so there's no point in me belaboring it.

So in order to make the changes that need to be made I realize that I have to start thinking about the pain. What hurts and what can I do to fix it.

See what having intelligent, caring friends can lead too?

Thanks, Belle...