A tale of perspective for the aspiring writer.
You don’t have to have your stories published to be of help to or provide entertainment for people. If you do achieve that - that will be fantastic. But if it doesn’t happen - it is not the end of the world. You can still touch many lives just by sharing your stories with friends and acquaintances - or by posting them on your blog.
For me, the real success of a writer is measured in the enjoyment and fulfilment experienced through the actual process of writing itself - not whether it is outwardly recognised or successful.
It’s amazing how we are ‘programmed’ to judge success and failure.
Take a sportsperson, for example.
Their lifeblood is based on competitiveness and achievement.
When you look at life this way, it is easy to measure success and failure.
Success equates to winning, failure equates to losing.
But what happens when they stop being a sportsperson?
How do they measure success and failure then?
How do they measure happiness?
Over the years I have had many different jobs.
I have sold clocks in the clock department at a large city department store.
I have worked as a process worker in a factory that made plastic bags. I stood behind a machine all day putting bags into boxes.
I worked as a clerk with a government department.
From there I transferred to an employment service where I worked helping people find jobs.
After that, I worked in a personnel section. I processed people’s pays and gave advice on their entitlements for leave and allowances etc.
From there, I spent 7 years working in a government warehouse by myself receiving and distributing publications. I used to travel throughout the state setting up displays at country field days for our organisation.
When the job was ‘outsourced’ in 1996 - my life took another turn.
I found myself unemployed, and in a position where it was very difficult to find work.
It may sound strange - but losing that job was the best thing that ever happened to me.
All of a sudden, after 15 or so years continuous work, I had become:-
"Joe Blog - unemployed"
No pay packet, no job, no title. Who exactly was this bloke called Joe Blog? If he wasn’t a clerk or a salesman or a process worker or a warehouse manager - who the hell was he?
Do you know what I did next?
I bought this old computer that I’m sitting at now for $350 and started writing.
I wrote poems, I wrote short stories, I wrote whatever I felt like writing.
I just sat there and wrote and wrote.
I started writing about my experiences in life. I began writing letters to people. I wrote to my friends and family.
In the meantime, I began to look at various religions and philosophies from around the world.
I was curious about what other people believed in - and whether it made them happy.
In many ways, my eyes were opened to new worlds of possibilities about how to be happy in life and how to measure success and failure.
It is amazing how fate or destiny seems to make things happen.
A few years back, I began running into an old teacher of mine, Laurie, from my secondary school days. I would see him on trams or in the city streets. We kept seeming to run into each other.
Each time our paths crossed, we talked and reminisced. But the more times I saw him, the more I noticed that there was something very special about this man.
It’s hard to explain other than to say he had an aura about him that made him stand out like a shining light (to me at least). He exuded a happiness and contentment in his life that few people in this world seemed to have - no matter how wealthy they were, how many awards they had won, or how high they had made it in their profession.
He had something special about him - something almost intangible.
If you were to come across him in the street, you would think that he was a poor man and probably a bit of a loner. He wore old secondhand clothes, and looked as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He was as skinny as a rake. He was often unshaven and usually looked somewhat dishevelled.
But when we ran into each other, his eyes would light up. "What a wonderful surprise" he said once as I boarded a tram he was on.
I asked him what he was doing now. He said he had given away teaching and was doing volunteer work.
He spent his mornings at a local charitable organisation in their cafe helping to prepare food for the lunchtime meal.
He would then travel to various parts of town visiting and comforting those who were dying of cancer - many of whom had few friends or family to support them.
He became their friend and confidant. He sat with people as they grew more frail and finally passed.
Because of him - many people who would have died lonely and unhappy, instead passed with someone by their side who cared.
Because of my mother, who died after a ten year battle with cancer when I was 15, I was very interested in his work and we talked at some length about what he did.
But it was his work at the cafe that really appealed to me.
That was something I could do. I wasn’t working, and it would be better than sitting around all day doing very little.
So, one day, I headed into the cafe and had a look around. I bought a meal and sat at a table near the window.
The next minute, I looked up and my old teacher was there next to me.
We chatted for a while and I’ll never forget the words that were said next:
I had explained to Laurie that after he had told me about the cafe, I had come in to "check it out" for myself.
His next words were "Well, it’s time for me to check out now".
He was off to visit one of his many cancer patients.
With those words, we said our farewells and he left.
It was only a week or so after that that I was standing at the railway station waiting for a train.
I was in a bit of a daydream, when suddenly I noticed someone standing right next to me. It was Laurie’s twin bother Pat.
Pat, who has advanced Parkinson’s disease, was also a teacher at my school.
Quite startled, I said "Hi Pat"
The next words I heard left me completely dumbfounded:
"Laurie died"
"What!! I only saw him the other day. When did he die?"
I worked out that it was probably the same day I saw him as he left the cafe.
When he said he was checking out - he wasn’t messing around!!
He had a brain aneurism and died overnight in his flat. His brother Pat, who lived in the flat next door, discovered him dead the next morning.
It wasn’t long after this that I mustered up the courage to make an appointment with the volunteer coordinator at the cafe where Laurie worked.
Within days, I turned up for my first shift. I served food to the poor and homeless, and helped scrub pots and clean up after.
On my first day I was speaking to a lady who knew Laurie.
Her words spun me out a bit. She said "Laurie mentioned you. You’re Laurie’s replacement."
I knew I was doing what I was ‘meant’ to be doing and it wasn’t long before I mustered the courage to take the next step.
In the back of my mind for many years, I had always had a vision that I would be working with the frail, sick and elderly.
I was just never in a position before to make that vision a reality.
But here I was - presented with an opportunity to chase that dream.
The charitable organisation also had an aged care section.
They had no suitable jobs in their area - but they referred me to another local organisation who did that sort of work.
In the years leading up to this moment, I had applied for hundreds of different jobs. I had written application after application and received letter after letter of rejection.
Some of the letters of rejection could not even get my name right!
One wrote "Dear Aldo......., thanks for your application. Unfortunately you were unsuccessful."
Who the heck was Aldo!!
I thought about writing back saying - "I’m glad Aldo didn’t get it ‘cause that means I might still be in with a chance!!"
I kept a folder of all the rejection letters - and after a while it became a source of amusement for me. For some reason, it didn’t bother me that I was being rejected by so many people.
Then later, I worked out why. I realised that I didn’t really want any of those jobs. I was just going through the motions.
But when I was referred to this new organisation - I knew that my life was about to change.
I had an interview - and I got the job virtually straight away.
Sometimes fate makes you wait until you are ready - and then BANG!
Four years on and I’m still loving this work. My clients have become more than friends - they are family. The connection I have with them is something I treasure. I have never felt as ‘at home’ in a job as I do with this work.
People I know look down on this work - as they see it as only doing ‘housework’. Others say it is a woman’s job and for many, perhaps that is all it would be.
But when you look through different eyes, you see different things.
Many people looked at Laurie and saw a bum. I know people who still regard him as a loser - because he didn’t chase the worldly riches of career, reputation, family, wealth etc.
But to me, he was a saint.
He saw through the facade of materialism - and went right to the heart of what really matters in life.
He measured success and failure using a different type of scale than most.
On his scale, the type of words that appeared were:
Compassion, empathy, kindness, generosity, integrity and sincerity to name but a few.
When I look at my job - I don’t see someone doing housework.
I see someone connecting with lonely and isolated people. I see someone caring about people who are often deemed redundant and useless by a society that often measures success only in terms of dollars, reputation, standing in the community etc.
I think I’m starting to see life through Laurie’s eyes a bit more these days.
And for those of you who wish to pursue writing as a career.......
Don’t write solely because you want to get published. Write because you love writing. Let the rest take care of itself. If it happens, it happens.
Don’t be discouraged by rejections.
Rejections by publishers are not a personal thing - they are a business decision based on estimated projections of possible profit and marketability.
Don’t take rejection personally.
I had a couple of hundred rejection letters before I got the job I am now doing.
In the end, the best way to handle rejection is to laugh at it.
As a wise person once said, "The best is yet to come".
Rejection may feel like shit.
But shit is the best fertiliser for enriching the soil for planting new seeds, and establishing new growth.
Each time you get rejected, have confidence that you are being prepared for something better.
Rejection can make you stronger if you look at it like this.
