Following last week's blog, a friend wrote to ask my advice – “I’ve
been writing for years, without success. Is it time to give up?”
Obviously that’s something no one else can
answer. And equally obviously I’m going to have a try – which could be a
definition of the difference between discussing and answering.
I believe that failure is one of the taboos
of our society. One of the themes in Peeling the Onion, taken from my life, is
how the protagonist, Anna, deals with her ‘failure’ to fully recover after her
car accident.
And giving up is often equated with
failure. “Don’t give up!” we
encourage our children when they are trying something difficult, but ultimately
within their grasps. “Never give up your dreams!” the self help books tell us
as adults, when we are aiming at something that eludes us. No wonder so many of
us find feel ashamed to even think of giving up, chucking it in, throwing in
the towel…
A school counselor friend recently
commented that pessimists had a bad rap. “The world wouldn’t function if it was
all left to the optimists,” she claimed (which made another friend and me
squirm, till we optimistically decided that we generally had enough pessimism
to cope with life.) But it made me think: “What if we reframe the question
about giving up? If something isn’t working, is it truly sensible or admirable
to spend the rest of our lives being optimistically tenacious and determined
(ie Never Giving Up!)
Because the problem is that time is finite.
Okay, not in the Stephen Hawking sense of time and space, but the amount of time
that we each have in our productive lives. So if we keep hammering away at one
particular thing, and feeling that we’ve failed by whatever measures we’ve set
ourselves – whether it’s friend & family feedback publication, or making a
living from our craft – as well as battering our self esteem into the ground,
we limit the time we have to explore something new. Something that might enrich
our lives, give us joy, or even success. Something that might bring new
possibilities we’ve never dreamed of, (including cycling back to the original
dream in a new way.)
Would a better question be, “Is it time to
give my dream a holiday, and explore new possibilities?”
Or, “Is it time to broaden my horizons and
challenge myself in a totally new direction?” (I know I was facetious in
another post, and said ‘brain surgery or sky-diving,’ but this time I’m being
serious. Cooking, life drawing, pottery, music, singing
And the final question, “Is the pursuit of
my dream is bringing me joy, or satisfaction in any way?”
If the answer is “No,” maybe it’s time to
give it a rest. (I say ‘rest’ because taking a break from writing is not
irrevocable, no matter how sincerely you mean it. You’re allowed to change your
mind.)
Because life is mysterious, and we never
know what’s just around the corner. Taking a break from a dream might just mean
succeeding at life.