What Last Week's Post Missed

The Drum Beat

“Sometimes we can’t get what we want. While this can be disappointing and painful, it is only devastating if we stop there. . . . In every space opened when what we want gets away, a deeper place is cleared in which the mysteries can sing.” - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Last week’s post about not apologizing for big goals felt itchy to me after sending it. I couldn’t tell if that meant that I hadn’t gotten it right, that I was giving myself exactly the raised eyebrow the post called out, or that I’d missed something.  

Then a snippet from a podcast resonated, I read this quote by Mark Nepo, and I saw at least a piece of what I’d been missing.  

The podcast was an episode of Armchair Expert with Ethan Hawke. In it, Hawke talks about a graph his mom drew him when he was really nervous for an audition. She graphed out the possibilities. He could not get the part. He could get the part and the movie could bomb. He could get the part and win an Oscar. Any of these outcomes were possible. So much was outside his control.

Here's the key: What happened with the audition didn’t really matter. The only thing that really mattered in the grand scheme of his life was how he handled what happened. If he didn’t get the part or got it and the movie bombed, he could keep working or to sink into self-pity. If he got the part and won an Oscar, he could stay humble and look for the next challenge or let it go to his head.

Big goals are huge motivators, yes! But attaching too much to a specific outcome misses the extent to which what happens is outside my control. What is in my control is how I react. So yes, I can dream big, but my dreams will not always be within my capacity or luck.

The drum beat of my first novel, of this book-launch season, and of this newsletter, is this: Keep going. Keep digging deeper.

Keep going through rejection and hurt. Keep going when the judgments I project onto (certain) other people in my life are screaming out: “When are you going to quit this already? When are you going to get the message that you are not good enough? That you’ll never be good enough?” These voices have been LOUD this week. They have been loud so many times in the past eight years. I’ve kept going.

I think we each have a drum beat like this inside of us. I didn’t listen to it for a long time. Then I lost my brother suddenly, and I couldn’t stop hearing it anymore.

I am traveling to Prince Edward Island next week, to L.M. Montgomery’s hometown, for a book event and for a few days of vacation. The trip feels like coming full circle. It’s been almost exactly eight years since my parents, my husband David, and I first visited the Island when I began researching the book. Now we’re all returning, with a two-year-old addition.

Our first trip to PEI in August 2015

I talked with my mom about what rituals feel right to complete that circle. In honor of Maud, I think burning a few things will be in order. Also, because it’s me and David, there will most certainly be long and heartfelt toasting.

More than any goal met, more than anything else, I’ll be toasting the drum beat.

Next week, I’ll be taking my first week off for true vacation since starting these posts in January. I’ll be back with a new post on Friday, September 1, and I’d love to know what has resonated so far and what you’d like to see more of going forward. Please take this five-second poll to let me know.