This morning, I realized that for a long, long while I have been looking for an escape hatch from my life. In a world of overnight successes, I wanted my writing to blow up or to win the lottery or any number of crazy fantasies to come through for me so I could avoid the hard drip, drip, drip process of growing as a human.
With my debt, I’ve been looking for a solution where I could be out of debt in less than a year. Not going to lie, part of that plan literally involved winning the lottery. It came from a place of desperation because I couldn’t fathom having the discipline and patience to work through a multi-year plan that would erase it all. I’ve spent years looking for a quick fix, when I could’ve spent years doing the steady work instead.
With my writing, it’s the same. I write consistently for a couple of months and then get obsessive about the numbers and fall prey to internet marketers and their promises of ‘my ten easy steps to write flawless articles that go viral’. I write one blog piece that I’m proud of and then start wondering why the book contract isn’t coming.
I had to travel for business this week to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I bought David Sedaris’ book ‘Theft by Finding’, where he shares excerpts from his diary over the years. What struck me is how hard he worked, how much time he put in to be successful. He painted so many walls, cleaned so many apartments, spent countless nights in IHOP working on his writing. He is one of my favorite writers ever, but I had never really thought about how hard the journey was for him. His success wasn’t linear. I figured he always knew what he wanted and he got his big break and that was that. How could someone so talented do anything other than write?
My spiritual awakening over the past year started because I wanted a vegan business I was working on to be successful. I found the law of attraction and thought I could believe my way to success. I still do believe in the power of the universe and that our thoughts become our realities, but I don’t think that the universe or god or whatever you call that spirit that creates our souls is a short-order cook churning out our dreams. I think that the universe shows up when you’re serious about your goals. I think that the work you do in good faith calls your angels forward to guide you, but that the way you activate the universal guidance is by seriously showing up to do the work.
I also realize that my spiritual awakening has brought so, so, so much more than the law of attraction. It put me back in contact with my own soul, it connected me back to myself in a powerful way and it helped heal the parts inside of me that were broken. I look back and think that it was funny that I reconnected to my soul through my own egoic desire to have my business be successful when the business is now on the back burner and my own spiritual growth is shining so bright. Life is funny like that, right?
I see so clearly right now that, for me, I no longer want a ‘quick fix’ to come in and overhaul my life to bring me my desires overnight. I want to dig deep and be my own savior, going through the sometimes painfully slow process of doing it for myself. I’m not going to say no if my spiritual guides step in every once in a while with a little fairy dust to move things along, but I’m now buckled up and ready for a longer journey. I want to do my writing everyday and find a community of people who want to follow along with my antics. I want to stick to my plan to pay off my debts and feel the joy that will come when I send in that final payment knowing that I alone did the hard work to pay back the money that all of these institutions loaned me. I want to find the joy that comes with fully living and embracing every moment of life, from the mundane days in the office while I work on my dream to the little flings of joy that come when someone leaves a comment on something I’ve written.
It’s easier said than done, sure. But now it’s said, let’s get it done.
What is one dream that you have that you are avoiding doing the work to accomplish?
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