What I would say at the lecture tonight if it were a speech…
Just begin
Whenever you feel inspired and compelled to do something, whether it be writing or anything else, allow it to come out of you. You don’t have to think of the reasons why you should or shouldn’t do it. Our culture is obsessed with setting lofty goals, hard work for hard work’s sake, entrepreneurship, monetizing our actions, and having a presence on social media. All of that can feel burdensome and stymy what started out as an exciting idea. Often, some of the most important things we do in life have no connection with an endpoint, money, or notoriety. When you feel inspired or compelled to do something, keep it simple. Let it out and enjoy the joy it brings you.
Do what you want to do
I can’t emphasize joy enough. I feel joy when I do what I want to do. Being true to myself usually leads me in all the right directions. Over the past six months or so, I have not written many posts at all on my blog. I don’t write anything for any reason except if it gives me joy to do so. I’ve had some hard things in life that have needed my full attention to process and deal with, and I have felt no inspiration to post things on my blog, so I haven’t. I know I am missing really interesting stories, fascinating events, and beautiful images, but forcing myself to document all of it because of some external reason will only feel burdensome. If your source of joy becomes a source of obligation, you’ve lost the purpose of it. Enjoyment, happiness, and fulfillment are really important in life. If you don’t like the life that you are living out every day, what’s the point? Do what you love, do what you feel passionate about, and do the things you feel passionate about in the ways that you want to do them. And take breaks for processing the rest when you need to. Be true to yourself.
If goals are burdensome, don’t have goals
Just start writing. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, or it might take off in some direction you never imagined. It might just be your own secret for the rest of your life. The bottom line is, you don’t have to have a lot of direction surrounding what you should or shouldn’t do with your writing. I had no idea that learning to create a blog one afternoon when I was sick in bed and then writing a few posts about Orcas Island would lead to uploading 1,016 posts over 7 1/2 years and publishing a book of similar material. I had no idea it would lead to helping other people self-publish books. I had no idea it would lead to meeting people with whom I am now in life-long friendships. I just enjoyed writing about the community and photographing beauty each day, and it blossomed into its own trajectory. So don’t assume that from the beginning you need to figure out where it’s all going to lead. Don’t assume you won’t be able to navigate technology that intimidates you. Don’t pre-decide that there will be insurmountable obstacles. Do not overthink anything. No one knows what life has in store. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (Lao Tzu). Just do the things you like to do and other things will come in the appropriate timing. Trust that. Imagine if all the inventors and entrepreneurs out there tried to figure out from the start where everything they were working on would lead. If a time machine took them to the future, they might be so overwhelmed with imagining how they got to that point that they might never even begin. If you feel compelled to do something, simply begin. Each day, life will tell you what to do next.
The medium you choose
However you like to write, use that medium. If you like to write with a pen on paper, do it. If you like to type, do it. If you don’t care for social media, avoid it. Whatever you are compelled to do in the way that you want to do it, it’s going to come out the way it needs to come out. I could be doing a lot more with my blog to get it out to a wider audience, but I feel compelled to do my blog not for the sake of a wider audience, but because I simply love documenting life here. I tend to not gravitate toward technology or social media not because I have anything against it but because that isn’t how I want to use my time. Use your time the way you feel compelled to use it.
You can write, type, draw, ask questions of other people to elicit their answers, record yourself talking on your phone, etc. And then there are so many ways to put that information in the world – in a journal, on a website, on Instagram, on a blog, on a vlog, in a book, even paper messages stuffed in bottles, corked, and thrown into the ocean. Allow your body to go through the motions it wants to in order to be in a state of flow. It will inform you of what to do.
Changing how you do things
My best thoughts come out when I type on my computer. They are the most accurate and articulate representations of my thoughts that way. But sometimes life throws you curveballs. Don’t be afraid to flex and bend. Lately, I have been going on long walks and dictating my thoughts into my phone in my Notes app. A lot of times, I delete them. Sometimes, they are totally unusable as blog posts but are important to record for some reason, even if they eventually get deleted. I simply do what I feel compelled to do. Listen to whatever is wanting to come out of you, and allow it to come out in the way that it wants to come out.
I also encourage you to change up any old habits that have you locked in patterns that keep you from living out new passions. Do you get home from work tired and sit in front of the TV or YouTube? What if you felt deep fulfillment and energy from the idea of making a new cozy little place somewhere in your home for memoir-writing (or whatever your passion may be)? You might be ten times more fulfilled than you ever were in your old habits.
Environment
The environment that you are in will either cause you to feel joy in doing what you feel compelled to do or it will dampen and deaden your enthusiasm and spirit. You don’t need great amounts of space to find happy places to work. I find that the smaller and cozier little corner I can find to work, the better. If you have a giant, vacuous, open space, or if you live around people who are disrupting, you will not have the peace you need to get in a long state of fulfilling flow. I have found that the quickest way to being immediately immersed in a comfortable, peaceful, quiet environment if it is not readily available at my house is going to the library. There are so many different types of work areas in the library, from big open rooms to cozy corners to little offices with doors that close you off from other sounds and people. I conceptualized most of Life on Orcas Island at our kitchen table, but from then on when I needed hours of uninterrupted space, I lived in the library. The library now feels like my home away from home.
Avoid anything intimidating
If you don’t know how to make what you are compelled to do into some larger goal or project that you are dreaming about, don’t let that stop you. You cannot see the way, you can only do what today has in store for you. Many things will come along and usher you Into directions you will go to to get there in the right timing. People will come into your life who have skills that you don’t. I didn’t know how to self-publish my own book until I did it, and now I am helping other people who have no idea how to do it, and their goals are being joyously reached. Just as you enjoy helping someone else to learn what you have learned to do, other people will step in in the perfect timing to help you. Focus only on the things you feel compelled to do today. Thinking about tomorrow, next week, or next month isn’t reasonable and will only cause intimidation. Don’t be afraid of technology, either. Many of us assume that learning a new technological skill will feel intimidating. But remember that many forms of technology have been made to be extremely user-friendly, and remember there are people out there who love so share their knowledge. In essence, block out the thought of something being intimidating, or of something being an obstacle. It probably isn’t, and you only give it negative power by assuming it is. Remove its power by deciding things will go smoothly. We have been brainwashed to believe that everything comes with obstacles. What if you decided that an “obstacle” was simply a redirection to a better path? What if an “obstacle” actually turned out to be a fun challenge?
Be vulnerable
Vulnerability is extremely important in giving all of us a sense of connection and fulfillment. When you allow someone to step into your life and your thoughts and your heart, no matter how you may judge your own vulnerability and your own characteristics that you view as flaws or faults, you are going to connect with many, many others. I will never forget many years ago when a friend of mine told me that my family looked perfect in a photo, and that was why she could not share with me her difficulties in life because she thought I would have no way of understanding. The minute I heard that, I knew I needed to start writing down my difficulties, which ended up being a very important collection of writing for me. Probably the most important memoir I’ve ever written. No matter how scary vulnerability may feel, vulnerability makes connection, and connection destroys loneliness and heartache. It creates strong, important bonds with others, which carry us through life.
Procrastination
There is a word that we use a lot to judge ourselves – procrastination. But we only truly do what we want to do when we want to do it. Sometimes all we need is a little bit of pressure in the form of time. I learned a long time ago that if I have less time – fewer hours each day to work on a project – I will be leaps-and-bounds more efficient and productive with a project than I would be if I had all the time in the world to do it. If you need to put some constraints on your time in order to have fewer hours to complete what you want to do, acknowledge that. Many years ago, I gave myself one year to work on my dream job without a paying job to keep me afloat and it was the most inefficient time of my life. I had too much time. I learned a big lesson. So when I wanted to write Life on Orcas Island, I constrained my time. I walked every morning from 8:30-9:30, and I volunteered as a math tutor from 9:30-12:00 each day so that I would only have three hours left to work on my book before I needed to be home and present as a stay-at-home mom when my kids returned from school at 3:15. Giving myself only three hours a day to work on something that required a lot more time was the key for me to get it done within a constrained timeline – about four months. In fact, I did not start writing the article you are reading until my walk in the rain this afternoon, dictating it into my phone. I wanted it to be live on my blog the moment the library lecture ended tonight at 7 PM, which meant editing and finishing it by 5 PM. Things come out of you when they need to come out of you and it is no surprise that often they will come out right before a deadline, an important meeting, or a lecture at the library. I don’t see this as a fault. I don’t see this as procrastination. I work best under a little bit of pressure. So if you feel that you don’t have enough time to do your dream, that’s perfect. You probably have the perfect amount of time.
