Growing pains
Sometimes it feels like the more I push forward, the further from my goal I get. I was reminded of this recently. As I have been working on the editing process of my book, it seems like the more I write the more I have to rewrite. I constantly have to remind myself that these rewrites aren’t failures, they are just helping me understand on a deeper level the process I am trying to write about. Thomas Edison tried over six-thousand times to invent the lightbulb before he found a way that worked. Instead of giving up, he used each failure as a chance to grow. As a matter of fact, after a thousand attempts instead of getting discouraged he said, “We now know a thousand ways not to build a lightbulb.”
Well, I have learned a dozen ways that don’t work, kinda work, and definitely work when it comes to writing. I have been stretched physically and mentally. I am tired, I am fried, but most importantly, I am feeling accomplished. I am living my dream and I know that through this process I am going to come out the other side stronger, wiser, and humbled.
Learn to write your hurts in the sand
A great parable I just ran across I wanted to share with you all:
A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?” The other friend replied “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
Where do you look for inspiration?
When I take time to look at my life, I have so many blessings. I wouldn’t consider myself different from most people. Each day I wake up and go to work, come home and play with my pets, see my partner, find some way to entertain myself and go to bed. It would be real easy to get caught up in a routine if I let myself. What keeps me going is noticing the little things. When I stepped out of the house this morning, I noticed the first buds on my jalapeno plants, I observed that my pool which has been giving me grief for the last 6 months was finally clear, I saw several birds flying in formation without running in to each other (the fact that they are able to do that has always been mind-blowing to me), and the list goes on and on. In other words, I noticed all the details going on around me that most people take for granted.
Yes it would be easy to let my life become mundane, but I prevent it by noticing all those little details.When you find your life becoming predictable, boring, and monotonous, take a moment to look around you at all the beauty that exists in the world and realize how blessed you are to be a witness to all of God’s little miracles.
What are you carrying?
An old Buddhist parable:
There is a teaching about two Buddhist monks. Both had taken vows of celibacy that included not speaking to or touching any women.
One day as the men are hiking through the mountains on their way back to the monastery, they come across a woman. She has been separated from her child, and needs to cross a stream to get to him. Scared to cross the river by herself, she calls out for help. One of the monks stops and says, “May I help you?” With that, he picks her up and carries her across the river. He then joins the other monk in silence and continues to walk back to the monastery.
A couple hours later, the second monk says to the first monk, “I can’t believe you carried that woman across the river. I can’t believe you were willing to break our vows and touch her.”
The other monk answers, “I put her down two hours ago… Why are you still carrying her?”
What is it that you are still carrying and how is it serving you? Avoiding forgiveness keeps us in the past. As long as you are stuck in the past you can’t walk in the present. There is nothing greater than the power of forgiveness.