31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 10, 2013!
Carlota
January 10, 2013
back against the wall beyonce performing for dictators boo-hoo breakfast of champions dive into desperation embrace the chaos law school debt reincarnation teenage dictators transitory nature of life
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Day 10: Your Back is Against the Wall? Great!
As regards Day 10 of our 31Ways2GetItStarted™! , ladies and germs: desperation ain’t always the worst thing. I started this business having spent the previous 10 years wishin’ and hopin’ and prayin’ I’d somehow be able to start a similar business–with no discernible results.Wishing, hoping and praying didn’t exactly lead to much. I was still stuck, still consumed by my desperate desires to avoid having to start over in TV news, or practice law (…the horror…!), and most importantly, my consuming wish to avoid continuously feeling like sh*t.
Finally, FINALLY it occurred to me: “Well, sh*t. My back is to the wall, anyway. What else could I possibly lose? My six-figure law school debt?” (Insert bitter laughter here.) So, I started the business. Or, some early Beta version of this business. Why not? I had been helping people, giving advice for years, nagging pro bono as it were…why not get paid? Why not get embrace the desperation, the fear, the chaos…and thus see it all fade away?
“…perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”-Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
I’m not writing this to prove how hard-core I am. Simply to make a point to you, Dear Reader: this is your life. It is all you have. You might come back as a shrub or a teenage dictator and Beyonce will perform at your birthday, or maybe you’ll be some old lady’s pet cat, but you won’t be (wonderful/irritating/exciting) You. Thus, while you’re still you, try and accept that This. Is. It!
I have friends who still are unable to accept the fact that all is chaos, and we each of us must create our own order, and frequently that’s easier when one joyfully embraces desperation…and these friends are stuck. They’re stuck in frustrating jobs, relationships, patterns. I may be working my ass off 24/7…but I am no longer stuck. The opportunities are limitless. I’m tired, but I’m not stuck. That’s why it’s a little difficult for me to have true sympathy when friends are boo-hooing about so-called awesome boyfriends who won’t marry them, or why they can’t fix their dead-end careers. If I say, “Well, end it,” or “Get a better job,” they retort: “But how? I can’t! You don’t understand.” Oh. Right. Like I haven’t lived through all of that myself.
I understand exactly. They’re not desperate enough. Not desperate enough to truly live their lives. They’d rather stay miserable then embrace the chaos, accept that everything is transitory–pain, success, joy, cats, reality TV–and dive into their rich, chaotic lives. Well, that’s too bad for them. That’s their loss. Me…I give thanks everyday I was one day so desperate, so sick of the wall digging into my back, that I said, “F**k this noise”…and did the one thing that had always been the most terrifying. Because sometime later I looked up and noticed that the wall had crumbled away, and all I had at my back was a rush of possibilities….
How about you? Ready to dive into that liberating desperation and embrace the chaos? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or leave me a note in the comments! You don’t even have to like Kurt Vonnegut; I won’t mind.