It’s amazing what you can learn when you read. And sometimes lessons come from unexpected sources.
Over the past couple of years I’ve devoured self-help books as fast as I can get my hands on them. The net result has been a new outlook on life and a rediscovered sense of self-worth.
Well, that’s what I hoped the net result would be. In reality they did nothing for me, and despite the seemingly limitless ways that an author can say “You can make your dreams come true!” I’m no closer than I was when I started them. Hell, at this point I’m not even sure what my dreams are.
Imagine my surprise then when I ran across a nugget of wisdom that clicked for me, and it’s in a murder mystery novel.
I just finished reading Elizabeth George’s latest novel, Careless in Red. Those who know me will recognize George as my favorite living author. Those same folks will also know that I love old time rock and roll but despise the song “Old Time Rock and Roll,” but that has nothing to do with this post.
For those who don’t know, George is an American Anglophile who writes British mysteries. Damn good British mysteries. When you walk away from one of her stories you’re left thinking not about the crime or the solution but the characters involved. George gets people, and her characterizations are poignant and touching.
As the story of Careless in Red concludes, one such character, an elderly gent named Selevan, looks back on his life as he is about to make an important decision.
Things change, Selevan thought. That had proved the case in his life, even when it had seemed to him that nothing was ever going to change at all. He’d wanted a career in the Royal Navy to escape what he’d seen as a life of unfaltering drudgery, but the fact of the matter was that the details of that life had altered in minute ways, which led to big ways, which led to life not being drudgery at all if one just paid attention. His kids grew; he and the wife turned older; a bull was brought by to service the cows; calves were born; the sky was bright one day and threatening the next; David moved off to join the army; Nan ran off to marry…One could call it good or bad or one could just call it life. And life continued. A bloke didn’t get what he wanted all the time, and that’s just how it was. One could thrash about and hate that fact or one could cope. He’d seen that daft poster in the library one time and he’d scoffed at it: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Bloody stupid, he’d thought. But not really, he saw now. Not altogether.
There is more wisdom in that one paragraph than in all the self-help books ever published. Because it’s grounded in reality. There is no promise of “You can make your dreams come true!!” There is simply the acknowledgement that for the majority of us with a shortage of fame, fortune, or luck, life is simply a collection of the mundane.
There are no grand adventures for us. We aren’t living our dreams. We drag ourselves out of bed each day, go to a job we can tolerate so we can put food on the table, go home, sleep, lather, rinse, and repeat. If we’re lucky we have our health and a family with which to share our joys and sorrows.
But the grand adventures are really the “details” of life, as George writes. For most of us it is all that “drudgery” that makes up our life. The trick is to acknowledge and appreciate that.
So maybe instead of brooding over the way things are, wishing for a dream job and a more fulfilling life with adventure and accolades galore, it’s time to focus on the details — the everyday miracles: my daughter learning a new word or phrase, the sound and smell of a thunderstorm, a well-made margarita, the end of Bush’s term as President.
Because it’s all most of us will ever have. And it’s that “drudgery” that we’ll look back on fondly years from now.
It reminds me of the lyrics in a Genesis song, “Fading Lights”:
Days of life that seemed so unimportant,
They seem to matter now, and to count much later on.So far away, away, fading distant lights,
leaving us all behind, lost in a changing world.
And you know that these are the days of our lives
So remember.
I’ll see your Elizabeth George/Genesis outlook and raise you an “oh yeah, life goes on – long after the thrill of living has gone” and an A E Housman:
Into my heart, an air that kills
From yon far country blows.
What are those blue remembered hills?
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain
The happy highways where I went
and cannot come again.
[...] Unknown wrote "Murder and Motivation" [...]
Whenever my wife and I are going through a difficult time, with the children or simply life in general, we always say, “Just remember, these are the good old days.” And though that’s true, your good old days are whatever you make them. You may not be able to expect a dream job, but you don’t have to suffer through a job you loathe just to eek through life. That’s surviving, not living. I’m with you on Self-Help books though; I’ve never read one that didn’t feel like empty promises.
Sure, Spike. Just show me up on my own blog with a quote more pertinent and literate than mine.
@Writer Dad: I guess if your definition of “surviving” is working in a job that allows me to put food on the table for my family and pay the bills, then I suppose that’s what I’m doing, with little choice to do otherwise.
I agree that a lot of the self-help books out there are fluff or rehashed content. I do, however, have high hopes for Steve Pavlina’s “Personal Development For Smart People” (which isn’t available yet). This is because of who’s writing it as well as what it’s about.
I vote for something in between accepting drudgery and aspiring to impossible dreams. There are definitely a lot of everyday miracles that we don’t pay attention to, but I think we should strive for a job/business/occupation that we at least like, even if it’s not magical. That’s reasonable enough, isn’t it?
Well, it is all a matter of perspective in the end, isn’t it? It’s how you choose to see your life. You may choose to see it positively [Although I wasn't a famous millionaire, we had a home, food, heat in the winter and lots of love to go around.] or you may choose to see it negatively [Damn that Bill Gates! Why does he get all the luck?]
As for adventure — You have to make that happen, and again, it’s all in the perspective. Two years ago I was lucky enough to go to Hawaii. I was only there 5 days and all I did was the ‘touristy’ stuff. But each day I got up early, looked outside and thought to myself “I am in Hawaii!”
When you look at your children, stop thinking of the generics [Damn, she's getting tall] and think of the little details [Damn! This time last year she was two inches shorter. Her bones and muscles are growing, she's getting her coordination. Look at her run!]
I choose to create my adventures. I will pick a road I’ve never been on [literal roads, like US 19 or a county route], pull over and look at the fields, stop beside the road and take some pictures.
We have become desensitized to so many things. We don’t notice the bird song because of the vehicle noise, we don’t notice the groundhog by the highway because we are talking on the cell.
It’s a shame.
[...] for this post. I was poking around on some of the other fellas’ blogs and noticed his post on Murder and Motivation. He quotes a character from a book as [...]
@Hunter: Thanks for the comment. I’ve never heard of Pavlina. I’ll have to investigate.
@Muze: You’re 100% correct — it is all a matter of perspective. Which is why I find the polarized responses to my post so interesting. Most have inferred a tone of resignation, while some have touched on the positive aspects of it. I admit that my mind was closer to the former when I wrote it, but it was the hint of hope in George’s words that made her character’s thoughts so appealing to me. Within the common “drudgery” of life are miracles that fail to notice every day.
So for me the post was part resignation but also part re-dedication to trying to appreciate those daily miracles just as you suggest.
Please allow me to clarify. I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with working a job that feeds your family. That is noble, nothing less. If you are miserable in your job, however, and you spend your days longing for more, than that outlook is bound to follow you home. In that case, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask ourselves if there is something more. Our choices might be scary. The ones that pay the highest dividends often are. But we always have more choice in life than we might think.
John Lennon put it pretty well when he said:
“Life is just what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
– Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
Ever since I came across that line, I’ve tried to be more appreciative of the little things that truly do comprise the majority of our lives.
Please let me, the eternal optimist, wade into these discussions. I have read self-help books and the thing is that that average person probably needs more motivation than a book. Accountablity to another person goes a long way.
I think we CAN dream about the future and how to obtain it while taking note of life around us. I find it dificult to do chores sometimes. Not because I’m lazy (ok, because i’m lazy) but because I keep thinking “what else could I be doing with this time?” like writing a book, posting on my blog, calling an old friend, just spending time with my gf, the list goes on. Sometimes we get too caught up in “life” to actually appreciate it.
I think *insert famous and respected person’s name here* said it best when they said:
*Insert famous literary quote here*
- “Famous person”
Darnit, Allclick! I was going to use that quote in my next post!
[...] Actually, the last one has nothing at all to do with what I’m writing about. (I stole that joke from Paul) [...]
[...] you for all the reaction to my earlier post, Murder and Motivation. It has become one of my more discussed posts and was referred to on more than one other [...]