Poor Little Rich Girl

I’m blazing my own path. Can I forge ahead without stumbling over my own self? (Overlooking the lake at Freetown of Christiania, Copenhagen, DK)

 

Creative liberation: Sounds really spiffy, doesn’t it?

Sure it is. Each morning, instead of getting dolled up and slogging through the asphalt jungle to an actual office, I crank up the Krishna Das, do some yoga, check on my magazine story submissions, and apply for a few contract gigs. If I feel like it, I might head out to work in a café down the road-or even (more recently), across the pond. I’ve got so much freedom that, on some days, it’s utterly paralyzing.

That’s right … I said paralyzing. Some dark days, I don’t know what to do with myself, so I don’t do anything at all—finish my grad school applications, prepare for that yoga teacher training that I keep postponing, or finish the novel pitch that I’m working on. That means that the only thing keeping me from realizing my goals is me.

What a ridiculous problem to have. Seriously, will somebody just slap some sense into me?

I remember sitting in conference with my former boss on the day she offered me a promotion. Ironically, I’d been very close to quitting, so I honestly didn’t know whether to accept. “You can do anything you want,” my boss said. “The only thing standing in your way is you.”

Opportunity can be overwhelming. I think that’s why a lot of people who leave their jobs to freelance wind up right back in the office. After years of sitting in a cubicle fantasizing about how we’d really like to spend our time, when we actually quit and face that new freedom, we’re forced to walk the proverbial walk. That walk is often less graceful than we imagined, and rather than endure uncertainty and shame, we head back toward our comfort zone.

Good thing I’m shameless.

Now would be the perfect time for me to buckle under the pressure and go get a “real” job. After a cross-country relocation, overseas travel, and the holiday season, I’m admittedly flat broke. My spirit is being tested, too, by the fat fistful of rejection letters I’ve received from publishing companies and magazines. This is it—the rough and tumble life of a writer, filled with rejection and isolation. I asked for it!

I keep seeing listings for jobs that I just know I could get. The validation of being told that I do something well—not to mention a healthy paycheck—would be really nice right now.

But I’m not falling for it. I’m trying to break out of that old workaday grind and create something new. This apparently means enduring transition, a period of time when I don’t get a pat on the head from an employer, or their fat cash either. Where a full-time, permanent job is concerned, I’ll never say never, but I will say no thanks, not now!

I can’t take a job, see, because I’ve got work to do—if I can just stay out of my own way. It’s not just a checklist of professional business goals to tick off (though there is that); it’s inner work that will allow me to weather the unpredictable and often eerily silent skies of freelancing, and indeed of life itself. I don’t know if Thomas Merton ever got a rejection letter from a publishing company, but I’m guessing he must’ve:

“This is the truth, if a monk regards contempt as praise, poverty as riches, and hunger as a feast, he will never die.”

Amen, Brother Thomas, and thank you for the attitude adjustment.