Re-affirming childhood dreams
When I was 10 years old, I’m told I stood up in my fourth grade class and grandly declared: “This book is stupid. I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.” I then spent nearly five decades undermining my own brashness and resolute certainty with an entire warehouse full of manufactured fears, self-sabotaging behavior and a lot of wasted time.
At 10, the only ones who tell us “you can’t do that” are parents and teachers, and they’re usually referring to things like running around the classroom screaming obscenities or staying up until midnight on a school night to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
My mom always encouraged my reading, and in fact, fed the desire with a constant stream of books and trips to Lewis’s Book Store to fuel my fire. Had she actually been aware of my then feeble attempts to write, she’d likely have, at the very least, not discouraged it. After all, she didn’t squawk too loudly when I started college as a Theater Arts major. I’m sure she had her doubts about my ability to make a decent living at it, but she didn’t discourage me from trying.
Fears are a fabrication of the adult mind
I’ve thought about my childhood enthusiasm a lot in the last few years, and still, I’ve yet to regain the absolute certainty that I could write and be a success at it. But after reading several posts about the solar eclipse with the new moon, I started seeing a pattern. Every article talked about it being a good time to release self-sabotaging behavior, and what is more self-sabotaging than failing to believe in yourself and your childhood dreams?
I realized I’d erected an immense concrete wall between me and my dreams and used it as an excuse for every moment I procrastinated and didn’t write. Suddenly, that wall is crumbling and I’ve written 3 blog posts this week (this one makes 4), added several pages to the book I intend to publish sooner rather than later, and am even de-cluttering my house and garage, a little more each day.
I have yet to regain the fearlessness and certainty of my youth, but I’m finally recognizing how much I’ve been standing in my own way. I’m finally facing my fears head on and seeing how little they really have to do with who I am and what I can accomplish.
I’ve seen a lot of things written about the things successful people do. I’d add one more to that list: they don’t allow fear to get in their way. They tune out the voices that say you can’t do that. They delete the word “impossible” from their vocabulary. The truth is, everything is possible. Some things just take more time to manifest than others, and maybe a little more creativity.
There is no box
The words “thinking outside the box” kept floating through my brain today. Which box doesn’t really matter because the fact is, there really is no box aside from the one we create to limit ourselves; to excuse ourselves from not achieving the goals we set when we weren’t afraid to fail. When the opinions of others were unimportant. When fitting in was something you did with a new pair of jeans.
Simply changing our mindset is more powerful than we realize. Had I known even a week ago how much difference it would make to revisit what was holding me back only long enough to let it go, I’m still not sure I could have made it happen. As with everything, there is a time and a place. The switch in my brain that needed to be flipped was finally ready and then, it flipped. There was no major upheaval. There wasn’t any warning. From one day to the next, I heard the right words even though they’d been spoken many times over the last few decades. From one day to the next, my motivation and creativity returned.
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose
Trying to force the changes before their time would have been an exercise in futility. But trying to prevent them now that the time is right would be equally futile. I accept the fact that what I’m meant to be wasn’t supposed to happen until I’d experienced the decades of uncertainty and even the climb from the very pit of low self-esteem to the place I am now. Sure, I have a great deal more climbing to do, but it’s all part of the journey I’m on which is far more important than the destination. In fact, that destination could change 100…maybe 1000 times between now and the time I finally decide to stop traveling. For the adventure lies in the journey itself and the mysteries which unfold as we move from one place to the next.
Life is like one of those interactive novels in which you make choices along the way which change the ultimate outcome. I’ve finally come to the realization that whatever I decide now about my goals and my purpose are not engraved in stone. I always have the option to change directions. I am in charge of writing my story so if I decide to give it as many plot twists as Heinlein’s “Job”, it’s my novel to write.
The freedom and power I feel for having not only made this discovery but internalized it is nothing short of miraculous. It is the most empowering feeling I’ve ever experienced, and suddenly, nothing is impossible.
Photo Courtesy of Susanne Nilsson via Flikr
