Tuesday, September 18, 2018

WHAT IS WORTH HAVING AND KEEPING...


“Nothing worth having comes easily”
Theodore Roosevelt



Ever wonder about stories of worldly success that went something like...

 “I wrote it in an afternoon and knew a friend of a friend of an editor, so I passed it on to them never thinking about it amounting to anything and was surprised a week later to have an offer of publication. The rest is history.

From the writer of a children’s classic picture book.


"I was working selling shoes when I became an actor after a talent agent approached me one rainy afternoon, and a few months later I became a movie star never having imagined my life would go anywhere near such, and the rest is history."

 From a forty-year acting career veteran and much $$$ later.


 "I never thought of myself as an inventor. I accidentally mixed some ingredients in the kitchen while making a failed birthday cake for my dog, and wound up with something the whole world needed, and the rest is history."

From A Nobel Prize winner


If you don’t know these stories, you haven’t been to the movies in a very long time, and possibly avoid reading fiction, also.



I think we all secretly live with such fantastic hopes for ourselves, even as they are not the way it usually goes. (That's an understatement.)


I don’t think that if it came easily it isn’t worth having. That thinking is too puritanical, even for me.



But I think a creative worthwhile life begins when you can let go of this sort of narrative and make the assumption that it just ain’t so.


That’s when I get to work.


“The work praises the person”
An Irish saying



8 comments:

  1. I love fairytales and I've read about many serendipitous meetings, events. I love these stories. But yeah, I'm in the camp of slow and steady...very turtle-like. I happen to like turtles :)

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    1. For a slow being, I vote for the sloth. Unfortunately we humans named them after one of our sins. But I find them much cuter than turtles. They, too, work with great deliberation at what they must accomplish every day ;).

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  2. Those kinds of stories of success can be fun to read and prompt wishful thinking, but they don't happen often. But the most important things in life, like the love of family and friends and the opportunities to bring joy to those less fortunate than ourselves and the beauty of nature, are within the daily reach of most all of us. We just need to focus on the right things. :)

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  3. It's amazing how some things happen that we least expect, and those things lead to life changing events.

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  4. At heart, I'm a turtle and wish the hares well.

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  5. Doing what you love and loving what you do are the greatest things in life.
    It's up to you!
    If you can't do one, do the other.
    I often found myself in such a situation. If you love long enough it works out that you love your life!
    Wishing a good year to you and all the rest of us...

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  6. It's amazing how some people just happen to be in the right place at the right time and fall into great success, while the rest of us just slug along enjoying the process.

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  7. Yeah, that serendipity thing reminds me of how James Houston was discovered. But he had the training and the natural talent. Once he was discovered he worked very hard and learned new skills.

    Most of us have to keep at it until we're in the right place at the right time with the right manuscript. Turtles rule!

    Turtles rule!

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