Everyone tells you raising kids is a lot of work. But like any parent will tell you, you don’t really understand what that means until you’re the one in it, sleep deprived, figuring it out in real time.
Writing a book is the same. Every author will tell you it’s hard. One author I know of, who’s sold over a million copies of his book, told a private audience not to write a book. That’s how brutal he found the process. I’m sure he’s glad he stuck it out anyway.
I’m in the middle of finding that out for myself. I didn’t want to write a book. But I had to. Every cell in my body was telling me it had to happen. I knew that if I didn’t write it, it would a regret later in life.
Earlier this year, I decided I needed to either do this or stop talking about it. So I put money down for a book coach, which is how I knew I was finally taking myself seriously. By then, I’d already written 80,000 words. That’s more than the average book, but I still had no book.
It’s just as well in hindsight because the person who started writing this book years ago isn’t the same person sitting in this chair today.
The difficult and frustrating process of writing has also become deeply rewarding. I’m creating something I care about. I’m wrestling with ideas I’ve spent decades thinking about. I’m trying to put into words things I wish someone had told me when I was in my twenties.
The book explores how much of our lives we can spend trying to prove our worth through what we achieve, how others see us, and whether we meet the conditions and milestones we’ve learned to associate with a successful life.
Somewhere along the way, achievement can stop being something we pursue because it matters to us and become evidence to prove that we matter.
What I know is that I can desperately want this book to succeed without needing its success to prove that writing it was worthwhile.
I’m still going to work incredibly hard to make this the best book I can write. I hope it reaches a lot of people. I hope it changes lives. I hope it saves someone years, perhaps decades, of the needless angst that comes from believing everything we hear on who or what we should be or do as evidence that we are enough.
I don’t know how the book will be received once it’s out in the world. Either way, I’ve already won, because I got to spend time doing something I love.
It reminds me of a Joseph Campbell quote (Star Wars was heavily influenced by his book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces) that’s stayed with me for two decades (I’m paraphrasing here). Follow your bliss. When you follow the money and the money runs out, you have nothing left. When you follow your bliss and the money runs out, you still have your bliss.
What is something you would still choose to do, even if you couldn’t guarantee how it would turn out