Life is an adventure, enjoy the journey

Stress. Uncertainty. I lay awake until 3am last night, my brain refusing to shut down. It had a lot to think about:

Project at work not going according to plan, with a deadline looming
My mother's health
A possible relocation to another State and selling the house
How to get 6 cats across country
How to get my book in front of more readers
Is the ambitious plot for my second book going to work

Attempting to calm my overactive brain and put these worries into perspective, I discovered two very important revelations, that I think many of us overlook in the rush of our daily lives:

I have a house, a wonderful wife, adorable cats, food on the table, and a good job. I'm not starving in the Sudan, fighting for every grain of rice, witnessing human rights violations every day. I have reasonable health, a great family, good friends and some of the highest freedoms on Earth. I'm not in a 3rd-world jail, homeless, alone in the world, or at death's door. I have a ton to be thankful for, and I am.
Life should be an adventure. Life is precious, and shorter than we would like. Instead of spending it worrying and stressing, we should be enjoying it, getting everything out of it for ourselves and those around us. We never know what tomorrow will bring: it might be smooth, it might be rough, but it IS an adventure.

No longer will I stress the list above, instead I shall embrace it. That work project is a fantastic challenge. That relocation is a chance to get out of a rut, to see fresh things and meet new people. I must trust my creative mind to come up with ways to market my book. Being a writer is a long-tail game, and I've only just begun. I WILL make my new book the best it can be. Patience and perseverance. None of us is an expert out of the gate.

A previous post: How stressed are you about your writing?

Carpe Diem.

Are you stressing? Are you failing to see life for the adventure it is? Please share.

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2 comments

Heather Day Gilbert says December 1, 2012

Great post, Graeme. I can’t wait to have time to finish OCEAN OF DUST so I can promote it more! Just probably going to have to wait till January to settle down to it. Working on finishing a book by December–crazy!

And I like your attitude. Moves can be painful for a while, but once you get settled in and meet people, it can be such a growth experience. Same with getting books published, I can imagine!

Gray Sharpling says December 2, 2012

Hi Graeme,
I can fully sympathise. I too have a project at work that is not going to plan. Flying to New York today in relation to the project, and it all went to heck in a handbasket late Friday when it was too late to fix it. So have stressed about it all weekend. The good news is that the long flight will give me a chance to read Ocean of Dust! Four chapters in so far, and it’s moving along nicely. Lots of questions that I hope to get answered by the end (sequels not withstanding 🙂 ).

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