Today is a day I want to document, because today I picked up the book I was working on back in late 2020 and decided to have a go at it again. And I don’t mean the book I was reading…I mean the book I was writing.
I published my first book in mid-2020 after laboring over it for more than five years. I think I was expecting something miraculous to arise from accomplishing this goal because it was also my fifth attempt to write a book. I was expecting a total life change, career change, focus change, purpose change. I thought I was finally doing the thing I was meant to do, and therefore all sorts of good would follow.
Except none of that actually happened, and I instead fell into a deep depression and creative void.
Yes, a number of people said my book made a difference in their lives. And this was truly gratifying and heartwarming, because it was the entire reason I’d created it. But what happened was that it didn’t make a difference in my life like I thought it would.
Nothing about my daily living changed after my book. My income didn’t change (in fact I actually lost money on that book, which is comical in a sad sort of way), my career path didn’t change, my sense of purpose (or lack thereof) didn’t change, my days didn’t change. In truth, what happened was that I’d gotten so discouraged by the publishing experience and my “failure” to be what I thought was a success, that I’d stopped writing altogether. For what ended up being years – the longest writing break of my entire adult life.
I think I was hoping to finally be something more than I was, and to escape from the corporate drudgery – which has always been what I think of as a necessary evil for my physical survival. These jobs have created varying degrees of unhappiness and suffering for me, and a feeling of being caged, and “success” for me would be to finally get out.
I was also hoping to become an “important” human on the planet who really made a difference for others, and who made something of herself in the accepted sort of way.
I guess it’s taken me a long time to understand that I am important simply because I am here and because I exist. And also that I am likely a small force in the world, not a large one, and that this is okay. Meaning, what I have to offer may be for smaller groups of people looking for something very specific, and therefore I may never find wide “commercial” success.
On many levels I am now totally fine with this. On other levels, I wonder how I can possibly perform this type of “smaller” work while maintaining an income I can live on.
I haven’t been able to answer that question in the 22 years I’ve been working post-college, so I continue to find myself in corporate environments because I excel at what I do and I can make a good living there. But I also continue to find disillusionment, and a feeling that I’m on the right path but I’m also not quite. It’s probably because I have allowed those jobs to steal too much from me – health, happiness, joy, creativity. I have also allowed those jobs to snuff out my creative work and to generate feelings of inadequacy that then produces a sense of inertia. Although I will say, a lot of my inertia lately has been because of a bunch of stress and uprooting and people dying and life.
I think step one is forcing myself to get back on my creative track, which is what I’m working harder to do now. We’ll see how consistent I can remain in the midst of a world that feels increasingly chaotic, dark, and distracting, but I’m going to try.
The next step? Well, I truly don’t know. I think l’ve reached a point where I’m waiting to see what comes after AI finally destroys the viability of my income stream. I know I’m on borrowed time, and I have moments where I’m terrified of the possible financial repercussions. But I also have a sense of wonder and hope about what may happen if that comes to pass. Would the dissolution of my income, and also of most replacement income streams, send me in a new direction? What would it be? Would it better support my creativity and my personal mission(s) on the planet?
I think it must. It has to. We are all here for a reason and for a mission, although I am still not really clear on what mine is. But I do know when I feel alive and when I do not. Up to this point in my life, most of my days have been spent doing a thing that makes me feel alive (writing) in environments that consistently do not. So I’m partway there I guess.
I wrote recently about dreaming new dreams and this is definitely one area that I am strongly leaning into. What was I put on Earth to do? Have I done part of it? Have I done very little of it? Have I now completed the internal part in preparation for an external part that is to come?
It’s interesting to think about, anyway. Helps distract me from the stress and fear of potentially losing my income stream and having to find a new way. But I know I will get the help I need when that happens. I always do. As long as I’m taking steps in the right direction.