Our Best is Yet to Come

 

"When the required minimum becomes your chosen maximum, the sum of your life is mediocrity." ~Anonymous

Try as I might, I could not determine the source, the author, of this quote. It was shared last Sunday by Karen Wing, a beloved member of my Artist's Way twelve-week creativity group as a final footnote to the good work we'd done individually and collectively, and it hit me hard. I knew I wanted to devote a column to unpacking its meaning.

Then to follow up, almost intuitively, another long-standing member, Pamela Salisbury, texted me an article, 7 Reasons Why You Will Live a Mediocre Life, that supports this bold claim. (I have linked it here: https://bit.ly/3v7sGMl.)

Perhaps the first thing we should do is define the word itself. 

“Mediocre is a word that describes something ordinary or less than average. It is not generally a positive word. Saying that a person, thing, or event is mediocre often suggests that it could be much better with a little more effort. Many people and things can be described as mediocre.” ~Macmillan Dictionary

Mediocrity is almost always rooted in fear: fear of standing out, fear of what others will think, fear of failure; and/or laziness, lack of imagination, not wanting it bad enough, and toxic associates.

I just finished reading a wonderful work for one of our 2023 Monthly Muse Book Clubs. It's called The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. (You can check it out here: https://bit.ly/3WuU1nM.) Pressfield posits that mediocrity hurts us all. Here he is on the last page of The War of Art:

“If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us out of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

Why should I care? Why should I care whether you reach for the stars? Why should I care whether you wake up every morning pumped to give your creative life its due? I care for the same reason I choose to hang out with sober friends. I care for the same reason I hate small talk. You and I are so much better than average. You and I have so many more intellectual and creative functions to express. Show up and tell me your idea. Show up and brim over with enthusiasm, with passion. Show up and together we will devise a way to make it happen. Let's do this. Let's be our best brilliant unbridled selves this year.

If not now, when?

Good Eye

 

When my son played Little League youth baseball, I'd often hear the other parents shout, "good eye!"  when he wisely chose not to swing at a bad pitch. I receive similar praise as a photographer when I capture an image that resonates with my audience. Whenever I receive this compliment, I am reminded just how true this statement is. Since birth, I have only had one good eye. 

Born with an ocular coloboma in my left eye, I depend solely on my right eye for my sense of sight. According to Wikipedia, "a coloboma is a hole in one of the structures of the eye, such as the iris, retina, choroid, or optic disc. The hole is present from birth and can be caused when a gap called the choroid fissure, fails to close up completely before a child is born." 

My coloboma is hour-glass shaped, and every now and then I'll meet a stranger who will point, peer deeper and exclaim, "Oh, my God; your eye!!!" Sometimes I'll play along and feign surprise, but more often than not, I'll smile and fill them in on the nature of the malady. I am acutely aware, each and every time I pick up my camera, that I am blessed to have that one good eye. I don't sit around lamenting the eye I never had use of. Instead I protect the good eye by wearing safety glasses when doing yard work or any activity that could compromise my sight. 

I send up a silent prayer each time I venture out with my camera, aware of how fortunate I am. As I sat in the ophthalmologist's office for my annual eye exam last week, I was reminded just how blessed I am to have that one good eye. 

As many of us prepare to celebrate Christmas Eve, let's keep gratitude in our hearts. Here's another great article to appreciate: https://bit.ly/3UUI8WQ

An Open Letter to Men Who Co-opt and Women Who Let Them

 

                                                          Image by auzza38 from Pixabay 

Co-opt: To take or assume for one's own use. ~The Free Dictionary

At the end of October, I wrote a column, An Open Letter to a Woman Who Fawns, and perhaps this post reveals the flip side of the same coin (https://bit.ly/3W9zzsg).

Relationships (romantic and otherwise) that begin because one or both of the parties need something (companionship, attention, escape from boredom, financial security, status) rarely end well even if the individuals stay enmeshed for years. If you're happily married or in a long-term committed relationship today, my hat is off to you. But all too often men and women who find themselves suddenly single are all too eager to latch on like newborn babes to the first person who meets a basic set of criteria. In this column, I challenge men to resist the urge to latch on because they're lonely, bored, and/or insecure emotionally or financially. 

I'll assume that the men who co-opt women are lovely, respectable, successful men (God knows there are plenty who are not). On the outside, there is nothing untoward or unusual about these men. They come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. The issue is with what lies within---a pervasive fear of being alone. These are men who believe that in order to be complete, in order to find meaning, they must have a woman by their side, in their lives, in their beds. It's high time we swept a giant searchlight over this self-limiting belief.  

Ladies, as special as I know you are, men who co-opt will be satisfied with a warm body and a modicum of encouragement. Resist the temptation to become enmeshed, engulfed, and enveloped in someone else's life. Before you open that door (metaphorically and physically), ask yourself which aspects of your life are you willing to shrink, relinquish, short-shrift? Will it be your relationship with yourself, your adult children, grandchildren, fitness, passion, purpose, creative life, God? Don't be too quick to relinquish your hard-won independence, your autonomy. I shudder at how close I've come to being co-opted by men seeking a nurse and/or a purse, by one on kidney dialysis, by one with a sexually transmittable disease, and finally by one closeted gay man looking for cover. 

Men, it's not our responsibility to do your heavy lifting. It's not our job to pick up the broken pieces of your heart and put them back together again regardless of the glue you lay at our feet---flowers, candlelit dinners, poetry, jewelry, texting. Take time to work on yourselves. Immerse yourself in solo travel, take a class, join a gym. Learn to be at home in your own skin, to find pleasure in your own company. Discover your true essence. Stop bringing us your unfinished selves expecting us to set the table, provide the nourishment and then clean up afterward. We have our own soul work to do. And make no mistake, it is work, and that's why some women will let you co-opt their lives, women who need little to no coaxing, women who need no other sign than your eyes gazing deeply into theirs, women who will gladly take up the challenge of fixing, patching, raising you up---in order to bypass their own deep work and introspection. 

As the philosopher, Blaise Pascal once stated: "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Step into the quiet, and recall writer Joseph Campbell’s wise words, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” 

Don't take my word for it, Check out the following articles: 

https://bit.ly/3WbxQmj

https://bit.ly/3hf6Tiz

https://bit.ly/3Hqll1Q

Full Circle

Image by wixin lubhon from Pixabay

Over fifteen years ago, I drove up to New Hampshire for the weekend, ostensibly to decorate my family's vacation home for the holidays. In the back of my SUV, I carried an oversized cardboard box with an artificial Christmas tree (some assembly required), a Tupperware container of glass ornaments, and a case of red and white wine, hand-picked for the outing, at the Hampton state liquor store (a virtual vending machine paradise that my children came to regard, euphemistically, as the candy store.) The truth is, I did plan to trim the tree, hang the stockings, and decorate the house, but I was really going away without my young family so I could drink.

At the house, I poured a glass of Merlot, ripped open the cardboard box, and to my horror, laid eyes on dozens of individually wrapped, color-coded plastic tree branches, and pages of instructions. I distinctly recall thinking, rather gleefully, "I may run out of patience, but I won't run out of wine." I inserted a lot of twisted, metal-tipped branches into pre-drilled holes that night, and I drank the way I wanted to---alone, and into the wee hours. To my surprise in the morning, the completed tree looked pretty good. My reflection in the mirror told a different story.

The memory of that winter weekend flashed back yesterday while I was standing in the fake Christmas tree aisle at Lowe's. As a child, I only knew artificial trees; my parents would never go to the trouble of displaying a real tree in the living room, but once married, with children of my own, it became tradition to tag, chop, and drag the prize home. I honored that tradition for a good, long time, but those days are behind me now. My children are grown, and it's up to me to decide which traditions to maintain, and which ones to create anew. Standing there in the aisle, I couldn't take my eyes off a 7 1/2-foot GE, pre-lit, frasier fir, looking surprisingly like the real deal. I wrestled with my decision, but I can think things through today. By the time I dragged that box up three flights of stairs into my apartment, made a cup of lemon tea, cut open the box (to blessedly find three pieces, not dozens, and a one-sided sheet of instructions), stacked the sections, and fanned out the branches, I knew---I'd come full circle.

I'm going up north again tomorrow, this time to Vermont, and I won't be alone, by golly. I'll be with a whole pack of women, sober women, women happy to be alive, celebrating this season with zest, vigor, a whole lot of laughter, and---no wine.

Restocking Our Intentions

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

'Tis the season, but not necessarily in the way the phrase is commonly used in December. Rather 'tis the season for us to take stock of 2022, soon to be in the rear view mirror. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines taking stock as: to carefully think about something in order to make a decision about what to do next.

As my hosting and teaching obligations wind down in December, my attention turns to what's next? And because I generally find myself a housebound Airbnb host between May and October, my wanderlust, my strong desire to travel, my Sagittarius nature, is mighty high in the winter. (I wrote about my travel intentions a few weeks ago in my November 8 column, Autumn: A Time for Puzzles and Wanderlust.)

I heard from a good friend recently who believes that she has, at best, twenty more years here on earth. Like me, she is in her sixties and longs to be free of obligations that no longer feed her soul, for a life with no strings attached. I can relate; can you? If I don't love it, and it can be anything from a sweater I no longer wear, to a job that drains my creative energy, to a relationship with a toxic friend, life is too short to spend surrounded by people, places and things that no longer invigorate me, that no longer align with my gypsy soul and hippie heart. 

Seven months ago, I claimed my right to write without hesitation, without fear, without restraint. Out of that commitment came my deep regard for the Substack platform and the ability to ask my loyal readers to support my writing with a paid subscription. Over two dozen readers have generously offered between $5.73-$7.00/month (less than the cost of some lattes) to keep the ink flowing. One special reader is even a Mighty Muse! It is my deepest desire that you will become one of those paid subscribers in the weeks ahead. 

As we begin the march into 2023, let's continue taking stock and restocking our intentions. What are you being called to do? What's dying to be birthed? As a creative midwife, I'd love to help. Tell me how. 

(Check out this great article about the importance and practice of taking stock: http://bit.ly/3OJDae3)t