31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 6, 2013

Day 6: If It Doesn’t Work, Change It!

Bear with me: I’m a wee bit exhausted, because I've been helping clients since about 5am this morning to be oh awesome, you know. *tosses hair, giggles.* So today, Sunday, I’m going to keep my wisdom short, namely: Whatever it is you’re doing, if it doesn’t work-after a realistic period, obviously—change it. Mistakes are fine; trying something new makes me happy…but refusing to learn from mistakes, and thus getting trapped into making the same mistake, over and over and over and sweet fancy Moses OVER again…no me gusta!

Listen, you’re trying to change your life, right? In big or small ways, yes? So wouldn’t it make sense to you to try something different when the first thing didn’t work? Oh, I don’t mean to start freaking out. I’m just tired. I haz a case of the grumps. It’s just that I see so many people who get locked into a pattern, and get stuck and then seem to think…”Oh well, guess this is it. I can’t [lose weight, find a good man, get a better job, fill-in-the-blank], guess this is reality and I better suck it up.” I dislike those people because they tend to be boring, and if I wanted boring in my life, I’d be back in a monogamous relationship. I’m not. My lady-parts are freeeeee! (Gross, I know, sorry. #notsorry)

Listen, the first 10 things you tried to (fill-in-the-blank) didn’t work? What about the next ten things? And the next 100 after that? True story: Kurt Vonnegut got 800 rejection letters before he sold Slaughterhouse Five http://amzn.com/0385333846. Think about that: 800. (He also saved all of them. I saw them at an exhibition honoring him at Indiana University.) 800 rejection letters and that man kept saving them and trying again. Have you gotten 800 rejection letters? And even if you had...so what, who cares! You’re alive aren’t you? What else have you got to lose? Nothing, not a damn thing, because when Kurt Vonnegut passed he had still written the books, and lived the life he wanted to. Isn’t your life worth a thousand rejection letters? (Don't go there, punk...I'm tired but I will still kick your ass if you imply your life isn't worth it.)

 Anyway, in the comments, I’d love to hear how many rejection letters you’d be willing to ignore to achieve your goals. And, in the meantime, want some help in figuring out exactly what those goals are? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com! Also, like my page on Facebook, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” for a free consult and join the movement…you know you want to…

I was out running this am, feeling a little sorry for myself--probably because I hate to run, but today I simply couldn't make myself go to the gym, yes my life of grim suffering--and I suddenly thought that as tough, in some ways, as my life currently is...for many people, it'd be a joyous walk in the woods.

Specifically, I was thinking about Nadezhda Mandelstam, widow of (murdered) poet Osip Mandelstam, and an amazing author in her own right. She wrote her first book, a memoir of her life with, and without her husband, Hope Against Hope...when she was in her late 60s. (http://amzn.com/0375753168) Not only was she a senior citizen, but she had spent the past 40 years surviving conditions of almost unimaginable poverty. She was constantly hunted and persecuted by the Soviet government, and had to witness the government-sponsored harassment and killings of her friends. If you're interested, I would advise you to Google Joseph Brodsky's wonderful obituary of Mme. Mandelstam.

Anyway, despite her decades of loss and grinding poverty, in her late 60s, she wrote a book that is completely honest, passionate and almost incandescent. She writes about her life, about the love she shared with her husband and about poetry, among many other things. She wrote about working overnight in factories, keeping herself awake by memorizing all of her dead husband's poetry, since it was far too dangerous to write any of it down. She wrote about how her husband was snatched from her and sent to the camps, and how she had no idea how he had really died...nor where his grave might be.

Yes, I have a huge hard-on for Nadezhda. I love her because she was old, she was cranky, she was smart, and very funny...and she was fearless. She had seen Stalin come and go and she knew that one day her values would be triumphant.I have a big thing for people who can dismiss dictators, no matter the personal cost.

So I thought about this (astonishing) woman this morning, on my run, and realized that the things I was whining about...would be like riches to Nadezhda. Here I have the freedom to read and believe what I want, to use my intellect (or something) in starting this business, to express myself without fear. And here I was kvetching because...what? Because I haven't taken a vacation in a few years? Because I have to work hard to earn what's important to me? Oh, meow meow meow. Suffice it to say, I stopped whining, finished my run,went home... and got down to work.

You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence. 
                                                            -Osip Mandelstam, 1935 (http://amzn.com/1590170911)

"His thoughts and feelings were padlocked, completely padlocked in his mind, and when he talked, most of the time, instead of expressing them he was using words to prevent himself from letting them out, fooling people by putting into their minds a picture of himself that was not at all Studs Lonigan." -Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell.

This is my blog, so what the hell, I'm just going to take a short moment to strongly encourage everyone who cares about great books to pick up a copy of James T. Farrell's masterpiece, Studs Lonigan. http://amzn.com/B004IYITKC

 Not an easy book, certainly. In Studs, Farrell has created a protagonist who is, variously, racist, sexiest, a criminal, a coward, etc. We essentially live Lonigan's life with him, and experience first hand what a cowardly, cringing wreck of a man he is. For all that...it's riveting. Farrell can't write anything but the truth. I've read and re-read the book countless times, since stumbling upon it as a teenager, and each time, the wreck of Studs' wasted life, hits me...just like the first time. That's true talent: to create a character whom I loathe and despise, but about whom I can't stop caring.