31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 10, 2013!

Day 10: Your Back is Against the Wall? Great!

As regards Day 10 of our 31Ways2GetItStarted™! , ladies and germs: desperation ain't always the worst thing. I started this business having spent the previous 10 years wishin' and hopin' and prayin' I'd somehow be able to start a similar business--with no discernible results.Wishing, hoping and praying didn't exactly lead to much. I was still stuck, still consumed by my desperate desires to avoid having to start over in TV news, or practice law (...the horror...!), and most importantly, my consuming wish to avoid continuously feeling like sh*t.

Finally, FINALLY it occurred to me: "Well, sh*t. My back is to the wall, anyway. What else could I possibly lose? My six-figure law school debt?" (Insert bitter laughter here.) So, I started the business. Or, some early Beta version of this business. Why not? I had been helping people, giving advice for years, nagging pro bono as it were...why not get paid? Why not get embrace the desperation, the fear, the chaos...and thus see it all fade away? 

"...perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”-Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not writing this to prove how hard-core I am. Simply to make a point to you, Dear Reader: this is your life. It is all you have. You might come back as a shrub or a teenage dictator and Beyonce will perform at your birthday, or maybe you'll be some old lady's pet cat, but you won't be (wonderful/irritating/exciting) You. Thus, while you're still you, try and accept that This. Is. It!

I have friends who still are unable to accept the fact that all is chaos, and we each of us must create our own order, and frequently that's easier when one joyfully embraces desperation...and these friends are stuck. They're stuck in frustrating jobs, relationships, patterns. I may be working my ass off 24/7...but I am no longer stuck. The opportunities are limitless. I'm tired, but I'm not stuck. That's why it's a little difficult for me to have true sympathy when friends are boo-hooing about so-called awesome boyfriends who won't marry them, or why they can't fix their dead-end careers. If I say, "Well, end it," or "Get a better job," they retort: "But how? I can't! You don't understand." Oh. Right. Like I haven't lived through all of that myself. 

I understand exactly. They're not desperate enough. Not desperate enough to truly live their lives. They'd rather stay miserable then embrace the chaos, accept that everything is transitory--pain, success, joy, cats, reality TV--and dive into their rich, chaotic lives. Well, that's too bad for them. That's their loss. Me...I give thanks everyday I was one day so desperate, so sick of the wall digging into my back, that I said, "F**k this noise"...and did the one thing that had always been the most terrifying. Because sometime later I looked up and noticed that the wall had crumbled away, and all I had at my back was a rush of possibilities....

How about you? Ready to dive into that liberating desperation and embrace the chaos? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or leave me a note in the comments! You don't even have to like Kurt Vonnegut; I won't mind.

If I could get anything into people's heads--besides the fact that they should fill my PayPal account with money--it would be this: It is totally normal to think that you're an imposter, that you have no idea what the hell you're doing with your [fill in the blank], and to be jealous of everyone else, who appears to know exactly what they're doing.
Spoiler alert: They don't. In fact, most people have no idea whatsoever as to what they're doing. They just hide it better. Or, they don't care. Or, they learn from their mistakes. But really: they just hide it better.
Obviously yes, some people do indeed know what the hell they're doing--like, for example, my amazing super, Jorge, who in four hours completely re-plastered, re-painted and generally fixed a huge hole in my ceiling. Yes, Jorge is a machine.--but most people, if you read their biographies, or study history, or just ask them later on...they're making the sh*t up as they go along. And for some of them...ha, it works! And they get the corner office or win the Nobel Prize for Literature or, like Stalin at the end of World War Two, enslave the rest of Eastern Europe, because he got lucky and Hitler was crazier.
I think that people want to believe that there are rules in life, and if they follow them...all will be well. Yeah, not so much. What there is, is luck, education, a willingness to learn, and crucially, a willingness to be honest with oneself. If one fancy corporate job has not filled the void within you...why would another, even fancier one do so? Hmm.
But once you realize there are no rules...isn't that liberating? It should be! I started this business, and wrote a play, and am writing a book because I finally said, "F**k it. I'm just going to do it. Who cares?" God, if I was worried about following the rules, I'd be another disgruntled, mediocre attorney, practicing law, badly, and hating my life. Not a good look.

Imagine what you could do if you embraced the chaos and were true to yourself...imagine.Why not email me @carlotazee@gmail.com and let me know!  (PS: Any readers who go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, after reading this blog...you're welcome and where's my 10%?)