Two years ago, there were eight people on my dad’s side of the family in his generation. With my uncle passing away unexpectedly last week, now there are four.
My wife Lisa and I are currently in Michigan helping my 84-year-old father recover from knee replacement surgery and visiting her 84-year-old mother in her retirement home apartment. Seeing the inevitable declines that comes with advanced age is a sobering reminder of what awaits me.
That said, these reflections are not making me maudlin, gloomy or depressed. And I’m not about to try to “live every day as if it’s my last,” because frankly, that’s not practical.
What I am trying to do is embrace my mortality. Face it. Make peace with it. My worldview that we are all born of God’s love, live in God’s love, and will return to God’s love helps me do that.
Another useful tool has been making a plan for my eventual demise. Being prepared financially. Having a Trust. A will. An advanced medical directive.
I’m letting the reality of my mortality influence my choices. Impact how I live. I’m choosing to pursue and live my dreams now vs. waiting. Writing the books I want to write. Seeing the world. Spending time with people I love.
What are your thoughts about death? Do you avoid the subject? Are you afraid of it? Those are understandable responses. But your life will end. Try embracing your mortality. Make a plan. Consider a higher power. Live your dreams now. If you can’t, take steps to bring them closer. If you do, you’ll have a more fulfilling life, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
Once I had the goal of being a traditionally published author in my sights, I attacked it. Studied the craft. Wrote my first book. Got signed by a literary agent. Fought through a myriad of rejections. Wrote my second book and endured even more denials. Wrote my third book, yet still struck out.
Then my break through. The fourth book I wrote earned me a four-book deal with Penguin Random House, the biggest trade publisher in the US. But I quickly learned that wasn’t the finish line—if I wanted a successful career, it was just a new starting line.
So I dug in again. Made connections with literary gatekeepers like librarians, teachers, booksellers, and parents. Promoted myself and my debut series. Appeared on podcasts. Gave interviews. Taught classes. Worked social media. Booked my own school visits and bookstore appearances. Said yes to any promotional opportunity, all for free.
For awhile, it worked. My efforts led to a deal for a fifth book. Three national book tours. Book signing events attended by hundreds of people. Being on stage with literary icons at book festivals. Becoming a USA Today bestselling author.
Then my publisher didn’t extend my Monsterious series. While that stung, I got to work on creating a new series pitch. They rejected it. I went back to the drawing board. They turned down the next idea too. I came off my most recent tour last October exhausted, dejected, and questioning my future as an author.
I finally gave myself a much needed break. I took several months off, writing little and doing virtually no promotion. The rest and reflection cleared my work-fogged mind and helped me find a healthier perspective—I did the things. I lived my literary dreams. Do I want them to continue? Of course.
But not at any price.
I realized the mysterious agony in my abdomen months earlier that had stumped doctors and landed me in the hospital was probably stress induced. I remembered that I don’t have to do everything or say yes to every opportunity. In the publishing industry, there’s an external and internal pressure to give everything to your literary success. To keep pushing, keep striving. It feels like if you’re ever without your next book deal, you’re failing. Getting left behind. Becoming a has-been.
But that’s not reality. There is another path. A version of my life where I stop letting someone else define success. Where I choose what winning looks like for me.
There are things I love beside writing that bring me deep fulfillment, like my nomadic life, traveling the world with my wife Lisa, and spending extended time with friends and family. Do I still enjoy writing? Definitely. Will I continue to pursue it as a career? Without a doubt. My agent is shopping my new children’s fantasy adventure manuscript to editors now, and I’m currently writing an adult thriller novel (and having a blast).
Will those books get deals? I have no idea. If they do, I’ll be ecstatic, but if they don’t, that’s okay too. I’m not going back to that stress-filled frenzy where I’m striving to meet other people’s expectations. There’s great power and comfort in deciding what winning looks like for me.
What dreams are you chasing? What goals are you pursuing? Whatever they are, make sure they’re your true passions. Don’t let other people define your success. Reclaim your power. Choose your own win. If you do, you’ll have a more peaceful journey toward your preferred life, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
The thousand of us in the hotel ballroom hung on every word coming from this short, middle-aged woman with tousled dreadlocks. Nearly twenty years have passed, but I can still picture her on that stage, remember her warmth and wit, and marvel at her wonderfully blunt honesty.
The woman was writer Anne Lamott, speaking at an emerging church conference to a roomful of young leaders who were trying to become more effective at helping people with their spiritual lives. I’ve been a fan of hers ever since, especially her books Traveling Mercies and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.
When a recent email from the Center for Action and Contemplation featured her ragged conversion experience and thoughts on prayer, I decided to share it with you. Regardless of where you’re at on the spiritual spectrum, I hope you’ll find her candor refreshing and her insight valuable as you take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
Writer Anne Lamott chronicles her surprising conversion to Christianity while addicted to drugs and alcohol:
When I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs…. The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling—and it washed over me.
I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and … walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, “[Forget] it: I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.”
So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.
And here in dust and dirt, O here The lilies of his love appear. [1]
Lamott reflects on praying from the place of desperation and surrender:
Prayer … begins with stopping in our tracks, or with our backs against the wall, or when we are going under the waves, or when we are just so sick and tired of being physically sick and tired that we surrender, or at least we finally stop running away and at long last walk or lurch or crawl toward something. Or maybe, miraculously, we just release our grip slightly.
Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape….
My belief is that when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God. If you say to God, “I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don’t like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You,” that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said. If you told me you had said to God, “It is all hopeless, and I don’t have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand,” it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real—really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.
So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. [2]
From the March 29, 2023 Daily Meditation from The Center for Action and Contemplation.This post originally published April 15, 2023.
[1] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), 50–51. The closing line is from Henry Vaughan’s poem “The Revival.”
[2] Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012), 5–6, 6–7.
