Once, when I was in graduate school, I picked up the communal phone in my student apartment to hear my writing professor, raging. “You can’t do this! If you abandon the muse, she will abandon you!”
You see, my first thesis topic was to write poetry. I worked with that professor, a well-known poet, for several months, but my poetry was not immediately great, and I feared it never would be. So, I quit.
Then he called with the ultimate threat—the muse will abandon you!
At the time I laughed. But, it's true. When you quit in fear, you lose your chance.
This truth is explained in a book I recently read called Big Magic: Creative living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert basically says, “Get up and do that thing you’ve been thinking of. Don’t let fear stop you!”
As Gilbert points out, it takes courage to do stuff. She particularly addresses the creative task of writing, but really, it takes courage to do anything that’s hard. It takes courage to make a friend, to start a new job, to paint your living room, to change your life in any way that you may be thinking about but wondering if you should.
Gilbert asks, “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” Treasures hide within each of us. But it takes courage to excavate and share them. Do I have the courage? Do you?
Back in 2016 I decided to write a blog. I thought, I have things to say. I could do that. Writing the essays took effort, but the hard part was sharing my blog. How hard it was to plunge in, to commit to doing it. How my heart thumped every time I pushed the publish button. I feared that no one would read it. I feared that those who did read it would think it was stupid, that it had all been said before. I feared people would misunderstand me, disagree with me, not like me.
What do you fear but want to do? Here are some examples from some of my friends—let’s call them A, B, C, and D.
Friend A quit a successful career teaching English to go to law school, fearing she was making a big mistake. She recently retired as a judge.
B overcame her fear of painting seriously; now she regularly wins prizes and sells her gorgeous abstract paintings for impressive amounts.
C, a part-time teacher, overcame fear to try a new profession. She took a job writing reports on the status of women, which led her to develop her own non-profit, a training program for women who want to return to the workplace.
D wished she could buy a layering shirt that would not be bulky but would make strappy tops and dresses more modest. So, overcoming fear that she didn’t have time or money to do this (she has 8 kids!), she created such a shirt and started a successful company selling them.
For me, I started a blog back in 2016. But over those years of blogging, I faced the worst fear of all, one that surprised me. Once in a great while, I posted an essay that was somehow different. The essay might be about a movie, about motherhood, about politics—but for some reason my readership blew up. I went from 67 readers to hundreds or even thousands. People were sharing my link. People were asking if they could re-publish my essay in other venues. People were caring about what I had to say.
And each time, the success scared me. What if I could never say anything smart again? What if people came looking for something from me and I couldn’t give it to them?
Each time that happened, I quit writing for a while. I was frightened of the very thing I thought I wanted.
In time I stopped posting altogether. I was busy with husband and grandchildren and scrolling through social media for hours a day. I didn’t have time.
And then, having denied the gift, it left me. I no longer had things to say. As Dr. Clinton had warned, the muse had abandoned me.
Gilbert says the universe is filled with ideas. If one comes to you, you can welcome it and work with it and create something. If you do not welcome it, that idea will go find someone else to collaborate with.
So now, my muse is reawakened. I feel invited to write again. Do I have the courage? Can I overcome my fears and push through, writing regularly, making sense of the world, and sharing my understandings with you, my reader?
Stay tuned. If I don’t, this blog site will be empty again in a few weeks. If I do, we will continue with our conversation. You can plan on something from me every week. It will be about 800 words, a couple pages typed, something you can read in about two minutes.
Come join me. See if I have the courage to bring forth treasures.
Better yet. Choose something you’ve been wanting to do. Don’t be afraid. Bring forth your own treasures.
