The Case For Working For What You Want

Writers write, and coal miners mine coal, and all of us must face the yawning chasm of our own potential.

I feel most inspired when I read writers who have a more experienced, practiced hand at writing then I do. One such writer is

Cheryl Strayed

, of the memoir and movie Wild, and of the former advice column Dear Sugar. I recently finished her book, Tiny Beautiful Things—a series of letters from people seeking wisdom or guidance, and Strayed’s responses, as “Sugar”, to them.

One letter, titled “Write Like A Motherfucker”, has not left my head since I read and reread it. In it, a woman, whose initials are E.B., writes to Cheryl-Strayed-as-Sugar, lamenting of her failure as a young writer. She can’t write, she says; because she is depressed and afflicted by the likelihood—which she deems quite high—of being a failed female writer, destined to “suffer mercilessly and eventually collapse in a heap of ‘I could be better than this.’”. E.B. continues, “I’m [a] high-functioning head case…sick with panic that I cannot—will not—override my limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude, to write well...And I fear that even if I do manage to write, that the stories I write—will be disregarded and mocked.”

E.B. finishes with this: “How does one go on, Sugar, when you realize you might not have it in you? How does a woman get up and become the writer she wishes to be?”

So, how does she? How do any of us get up and become who we wish to be? Here, we know E.B.’s desire is to be a writer. She wants this, and yet is beleaguered by the yawning chasm of her own potential. Her depression is only one layer, as depression often is. What she is faced with is doing the work of becoming who she wishes to be, while overcoming her very human limitations in the process, which may indeed be arduous. In fact, for writers in particular, writing often feels arduous.

But what about the passion-fueled life?

There’s an idea about work that has circulated the zeitgeist since I have been of working age; probably longer. That idea is that the “right” work will feel easy; that it won’t be hard once you’ve found your passion. Thus, you should doggedly persist in discovering your passion, and await your smooth, flow-filled work life.

I think this idea is wrong, or at least, it must be only partly right. Like most trite colloquialisms, it carries grains of truth: when you are engaged in work or art that feels really good or right, a lot of it may come easily. When you listen to your inner compass, and respect your natural talents and desires, you probably won’t experience as much resistance as you would if you did not listen to your inner compass or respect your natural talents and desires. (If I tried to go into politics right now, for example, I’d incur great resistance—no part of me wants that life, and my inner compass would be screaming STOP.)

Even if you come upon someone who has tremendous and delightful ease in their lives and work, and says they are fueled by their passions, you’ll also notice that they’ve worked hard to get here. They’ve made sacrifices, probably many, and done some internal soul-searching to figure out what they love and how to do it. Even still, these people also have bad days, and they work through those days. Their easeful, passionate lives are tempered by the boring, shitty things that being a human necessitates doing.

Doing that most satisfying or rewarding work-that-doesn’t-feel-like-work can only come through doing other work. Other work, that is, which requires toil—or dare I say grind—or at the very least, grit and perseverance.

It is not enough just to want what you want. It’s not going to arrive on your doorstep in pretty packaging. You’ve got to want it and actually do it. If you’re lucky enough to choose what you want to do with your life, you’re lucky enough to work for what you want. It also might be that working for it—applying effort, remaining determined and trusting yourself—is what makes that outcome satisfying or rewarding.

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Let us return to the case of E.B., our lovely depressed writer who can’t write. Take her situation, and substitute anything you love or deeply want for writing. Swap in your own passion or desired experience.

In Cheryl-Strayed-as-Sugar’s reply to this woeful, young writer, she identifies arrogance as being one of E.B.’s pitfalls:

“The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there’s arrogance at its core. It presumes you should be successful at twenty-six, when really it takes most writers so much longer to get there. You loathe yourself, and yet you’re consumed by the grandiose ideas you have about your own importance. You’re up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done.”

Sugar’s advice to E.B., in short, is to get on the ground level, and work. “So write.” She tells the story of writing her own first book, which took longer than she anticipated.

“I realized that if I truly wanted to write the story I had to tell, I would have to gather everything within me to make it happen. I would have to sit and think of only one thing longer and harder than I thought possible. I would have to suffer. By which I mean work…It was only when I humbly surrendered that I was able to do the work I needed to do.”

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Humans are silly, intelligent creatures. We want things desperately, yet are often so plagued by fear or insecurity that we stop at the wanting. We stop because it’s too much work, or we don’t know how, or we are too jealous of the people who have already done the thing we want to do. We are all inclined toward arrogantly expecting success when we haven’t done the work to get there. We want things to be easier, less painful than they are.

It is not that we need struggle, pain, or bewilderment to lead us down lives we want to be living. It is merely that this is what we will inevitably incur along the way. We might as well accept that there will be roadblocks, bad days, and periods of struggle, pain, and bewilderment. Usually, if we wish to create art or otherwise reach people in a meaningful way, it is those difficult periods that give us the fortitude, compassion, and experience to actually reach those people.

We will not get very far if our limitations are more powerful than our resilience, trust, and grit. And so, the trick with limitations is to not breathe power into them. Breathe instead into resilience, trust, and grit.

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My father has routinely reminded me that writers write. I’ve taken his advice. He has also routinely told me that no matter what, you’re going to have to take out the trash and brush your teeth. Meaning, that even if you have the ability to live your “dream life” and work your “dream job”, you will always have to take care of the boring, mundane, shitty things you don’t want to do. You’ll sometimes need to stand in line at the DMV. And pick up dog poop. And drag yourself to a doctor because there’s something weird on your skin. Sometimes the boring, shitty work is actually the thing you say you want. Sometimes, your passions suck too.

For as wonderful as the passionate dream life appears, it still and will always involve working hard at what you do, and for what you want, and doing things you don’t really like. Your dream life is this life. Let that perspective guide you.

You may not ever unearth a passion within you that makes work feel easy and also pays the bills. If you do—that’s awesome. There will still be difficult days, and times in which you doubt yourself and your passions. You’ll still have to take out the trash and brush your teeth.

If you do know what your “passions” are, or what you want, and you aren’t doing anything about it? Go ahead and take Cheryl Strayed’s advice:

“Writing is hard for every last one of us… coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.”

So, dear readers, go pick up your shovels. It’s time to start digging.

Maggie