Friendly Idea

If you listen to my podcast Author2Author, you may have heard me say “What it takes to write the book you most want to write is also what it takes to lead the life you most want to lead.” This little nugget occurred to me long before I could explain it to anyone, though I knew it had something do with making choices. Fortunately, the more I write and teach about the intersection of writing and my everyday life, the more I understand just how true it is. I don’t mean to brag – this is just how life and creativity works. Something occurs to me, whether it’s a story idea or Big Life Idea, and then I have to learn about it. I have to learn about ideas because they are just seeds that need consistent attention to bloom into something shareable with other people. Sometimes I learn about an idea by doing research or by talking to friends, but mostly I learn by mulling it over as I go about my day. I ask myself a question about the idea and I start getting answers, which usually leads to more questions and so on.

And by “answers” I mean thoughts – lots and lots and lots of thoughts. A book is nothing but a series of connected thoughts we call sentences. For most of my life I did not understand the singular role thought played in every aspect of my life. Thoughts were just the non-material stuff rattling around in my head that kept me interested in quiet moments. Meanwhile, reality was all the stuff I was dealing with outside of me. That’s where my success and happiness lay – out there. That’s where the jobs were and the relationships were and the money and houses and – well, everything. It was all out there.

What I have come to understand is that everything I have ever wanted, I found, achieved, met, or acquired through thought. Just as I have learned to follow my curiosity and the thoughts it attracts to write an essay or a book, so too thought led to me to the woman I married, to the work I do, to the house in which I live. I listen to thoughts and I ignore thoughts, just as I keep sentences and delete sentences. Whether writing or living, my job is always to learn the difference between thoughts worth pursuing and thoughts I should ignore.

I remind myself of this every day because thoughts still seem like nothing. They can’t be seen or touched, and yet they are the surest guides through the world away from my writing desk. This is good because I need a guide. I have no idea how the future will unfold, whether tomorrow or an hour from now. But thoughts come to me in this very moment, and by some friendly mysterious means they always know the way toward what I want.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual and group coaching.