I once met a man who dreamed of being a garbage man when he was a little boy. And when he grew up, that’s what he did. For as dirty of a job as it was, he enjoyed it until he retired. For him, it was a way to serve people in his community. It also allowed him to develop some unique relationships with families along his route and to be home to greet his kids every day after school while they were growing up. But it also allowed him to fill in on Sundays for local churches when their pastors where called away, fell ill, or had been asked to step down.
In his mind, that was his calling. It was the work that had been prepared for him, and for which he’d been prepared. Because he was willing to take that particular road, he was available to walk alongside the little church I’d grown at a time when we needed someone like him in our lives the most.
In his letter to the Christians living in Ephesus, the apostle Paul wrote, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
I know that not everyone believes that we are “called” to specific occupations. But what if we were called to specific endeavors?
What if, like Harry Potter or Fable Nuthatch, we were born wizards with a special ability to weave a magic that could help build up worlds (and people) through the use of words. And what if, when presented with the opportunity to learn how to use that gift, we kept saying “no” and chose to live in our non-magical worlds because it was familiar, acceptable, and safe?
Maybe we don’t even realize we’re saying no. But if we think about it, what it really being said when we tell ourselves “I don’t have the time/energy/finances/creative bandwidth to write today”?
And what happens when we keep telling ourselves the same thing over and over, day in and day out?
I ask you because these are questions I’ve had to ask myself.
Finding the courage to say “yes” to your writing
Spending my days as a writer and as an editor has been a dream of mine since my junior year of college. In my twenties, my dream was to be a multi-published best-selling author who was also an editor at one of the big houses by the time I was 30. But by the time I hit 31, I was all but certain that dream was just that, a dream. One that I could see swirling down the drain right before my eyes.
I began listening to the voices in my life telling me it was time to be more of an adult. To get a real adult job that included things like pensions and insurance—things that would support me later on in life. And, as the rejection slips from stories I’d queried and resumes I’d submitted kept piling up, I began to think that maybe those voices were right. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be a writer or an editor. Maybe I wasn’t good enough. So I gave up and I started looking for a “real” job.
I tried a couple of different “sure-thing” jobs during the next few years, including one that could have easily been a life-long career doing important work. But it kept me so busy, I couldn’t even think of writing as a hobby. It became something I used to do.
Instead of feeling accomplished, I just felt more lost. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t doing what I was called to do. Then, just when I thought it was too late to go back and that I’d just have to accept my life for the way it was, in walked a friend who wasn’t going to let me keep saying “no” any longer.
It took me a while to work up the gumption to take that leap again, but she continued to encourage and challenge me, and my life hasn’t been the same since.
I’ve discovered that, like any journey, the idea of an adventure is always more romantic sounding on paper than it is in real life. But I’ve also discovered that the days that I make my editing and writing a priority are the days I feel the most that I’m doing what I was always meant to do—even when it’s all I can do to get a few sentence down or it feels like I’m having to go over the same paragraph of a client’s manuscript multiple times because something isn’t clicking for some reason.
Taking the time to transition my passion of writing and editing from a hobby to a life path is one of the scariest and most fulfilling investments I’ve ever made. If it’s something you’re still on the fence about, that’s okay.
But maybe it’s time to start asking yourself what it would take to change your answer to the invitation of pursuing your writing as something more than a hobby from a “no” to a “yes.”
It may be a struggle, but you can do this. Endure fort!
—Jen