Running from problems works incredibly well—right up to the point where you tire, slip, and your accumulated pursuers pile upon you.
Personally, I think it’s better—though it might be inconvenient—to confront a problem when it’s still small. The other way—confronting it after it’s grown into a raging monster—is utterly exhausting.
It is nice to take one day per week to dedicate half a day, (or all day), to wiping out those little issues while they are still small. It is very effective at building confidence, a series of little victories throughout that special day, as opposed to the other 6 days of friction and “Not enough time-Itus” to deal with it.
Hey, Master Wayne – good musings, as always. I must admit I have been guilty of this for most of my life. Inertia is a powerful force, and unless actively resisted from the beginning, it slowly gathers a great host of reasons to stay put which must be confronted with apocalyptic results. At this moment in my life, I am doing just that. For a season, I am steeling myself to have a go at this ‘blogging and making a living online’ thing / or to go back to school and resign myself to working a job I won’t like until I get steamed up enough over that to try to make a living off my writing again.
I was curious to know, do you make a living off of this, Echo and your blog? You have a great army of followers, and every day my email blows up with your thanks for another Echo purchase. Or do you have a day job to support yourself with? Would you recommend going whole-hog on trying to write for a living, or would you advise me to keep my day job? (currently in a warehouse, cutting steel – there *might* be an opportunity to learn to be a mechanic, since I scared my boss with my two week notice yesterday.)
I slightly regret being so bald-facedly self-serving in my comment, but I am trying to decide in wisdom, and the Proverbs reminds me daily that there is wisdom in many counselors. I hope that this does not come across as insulting.
On the plus side, if I don’t have a day job and I only have writing and/or school, I’ll have more time to finish Echo!
No, I’m in a rather lucky conundrum; I go to school and am paid a generous stipend from the GI bill, plus my physical disability. I decided to treat writing like a second job while I have this opportunity. I certainly don’t make enough to live off Echo; maybe a few hundo a year. I will have to get a job next year, and am arranging my resources so that I can continue writing and live a fulfilling life while being able to support my aging relatives if they need it. I would advise thinking strategically. Your immediate needs, I assume, would be survival and then a modicum of entertainment and/or luxury. Add in whatever familial burden you have. Now you would like to write, so what job in your immediate grasp would help facilitate that, and continue giving you a comparable standard of living? I would say aim for that, and then keep thinking strategically: what would be the path to a work at home job? In this manner, you can structure your actions to benefit you and give meaning to your day. This is what I’m doing. Writing is guarded by the “rule of 5%s.” 70% of America wants to write a book. 5% will do it. 5% will sell it. 5% will write a second book. 5% 5% 5%…and after you pass many of those gates lies a living, and then wealth. So just from a practical standpoint, I think it’s important to keep that in mind, and structure intent/strategy/tactics around that reality. Hope that helps.
I cannot fully express my thanks for your very detailed response to my off-the-cuff question. Thank you, Dirty Buddha.
My biological family is self-sufficient thanks to their savings and disability payouts, which means I am relatively flexible in how I choose to support myself. That said – I have designs on marriage coming up in my life, and it won’t be long before I have to support myself plus one, and her own expenses for decorating our new domicile and creature comforts. I’m blessed that I don’t have a great need for expensive, mindless entertainments, but I’m cursed in that I’m a flakey artistic type with the self-awareness to realize his flakiness.
😛
I realize it’s unrealistic to aim for a truly 8-hour work day if one wants real career advancement. I’m at a cross-roads between what experience and convention tells me is possible, and what the easily-misguided heart yearns for. What I want is to write for a living. Is that realistic?
Heck-no.
Is it possible?
Only by the Lord’s will.
Any sort of living is going to require investments of my resources and time.
This was not a coherent thought.
No problem! I like to go by the clues of life, and adjust my strategy accordingly. It sounds like your clues are many and contradicting! As far as the flakiness, I’d say that Steven Pressfield’s “War of Art” is probably the premier treatise on creative enterprises. The reality of being artistic is that (I’m sure you’ve realized) due to the inherent chaos in an artistic endeavor, which is much more chaos than in an established corporate structure, discipline and critical thinking become even more important to instantiate order and meaning. That’s just my opinion. Good luck with your quest! 🙂
It makes sense, don’t it? Thanks for sharing the inspiration anyway because we all often forget this.
Kent Wayne 
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