At some point, anyone who follows their passion will suspect that, Oh my god, I have wasted the last X years of my life.
I recently had to face the consequences of my decision to work only low-paying jobs for ten years so that I would have the time and energy to work on my fiction. Because of my salary history, I don’t have a lot of savings I can contribute to buying my own apartment, and the amount of money I can safely borrow is limited.
My mom pointed this out to me the other day, and even though she delivered the news gently and I already knew it anyway, I still felt like I’d been sucker punched.
But the next evening, my mom called me to thank me for all the advice I’ve given her about writing. She has been hired by a writer to help excavate memories from the writer for an autobiography, and to take notes, to keep records, to be organized but not in a way that hampers the creative process, and to be a soundboard in general. A few weeks ago, she asked for my advice about this process, and it turns out that not just my mom is grateful for what I contributed, the writer is, too.
In my value system, helping another writer to write is far, far more valuable than having some extra cash lying around. I am doing what I was put on this planet to do, and if I had to make some sacrifices to do that, so be it. The ten years were absolutely worth it.
If you’re feeling conflicted about the trajectory of your life, take a minute and go back to the start. What were you put on this planet to do?
Write it down and tape it up somewhere you will see it every day. It is proof that you are not wandering around blindly. You have a destination, and you’re on your way.
I can definitely agree with you. For I do not want to be remembered for merely being successful in a certain type of career, I want to be remembered for being successful in what God placed within me– and that is putting words into the air or on paper which He divinely inspires or gives me the utterance. There is someone out there who needs to hear the story or stories which He has placed within me. It could be that perhaps there is one individual somewhere in the vastness of this world who will only be able to receive their healing or deliverance from whatever situation that they may be in — through reading something I have written or spoken. If I never receive a dime for my writing then so be it, because I believe a person only gets one life to get things “right”. That to me is priceless. Continue to write, and when you release your words you are planting seeds into your readers that have the potential to “grow” them in multiple ways. Be Blessed! – Ms. Wendy
being is doing. =p
we do what we are.
people on the other side of the spectrum, who tended not to follow their dreams, also think the same thing – that they wasted precious years. i think numbers of years shouldn’t count as much as what took place during those years. a closer look on any given day wouldn’t qualify as being “wasted.”