Vitality Stories
I Am Not A Curmudgeon
I’m a bit late today sending this email. All of my routine plans and activities were nowhere in sight this week, and today I am returning to a routine, but it’s not going to last for long. Let me babble-explain.
First, despite what many believe, a writing career isn’t a lucrative one for most authors, and this is why my writing goals can’t be about making X-amount of money or selling 1,000,000 books. My goals are about connecting with at least one person with each project. In this regard, I’m a HUGE success in my book (pun intended).
However, these connections don’t pay the bills, and we all need money to live, right?
I am lucky. I have a generous, supportive and encouraging partner. I have savings. So really, I don’t have to worry about money, BUT I’ve been independent since I was 15 years old, and I tie making my own money to my independence and resourcefulness, and therefore, I always worry about money.
So long story longer, when we moved to Ithaca, New York, last August, I decided I should get my real estate license. One, it will fill in some of the gaps on my resume since I left corporate America, and two, it will create options for me if I do want to start making money again. Even selling one house a year*, will help pay for some of my creative expenses: software, technology needs, office supplies, book cover artists, printing, and tattoo artists for fictitious characters. Smart, right?** Yes, except I dragged my heels on doing the blasted course. New York requires 75 hours of online class time, and the class drove me bonkers. Instead of just listing bullet points and facts of the information I need to know, they made up characters and stories to take the students through real estate scenarios. The writing was tedious, the characters shared what they had for breakfast and made bad jokes. I was miserable and chained to a virtual clock that wouldn’t let me speed through the lesson even though I could pass the lesson quiz.
Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been complaining about the course for months now, and on Sunday my partner, Ted, asked, “When did you become such a curmudgeon?”
Me: I AM NOT A CURMUDGEON!
To prove it, I sat down for three days in a row and finished the course yesterday. Behind closed doors, I pouted because I couldn’t edit Tiger Drive and send out a chapter to the Tiger Drive Squad. I yelled at the computer, trying to convince the program that “people don’t talk like that” and more. Of course, I made sure Ted didn’t hear any of it. I had a point to prove.
It turns out the point-proving was pointed at me. I finished the course yesterday, and now I feel amazing. Liberated. Last night, I slept like a newborn puppy. Point: I should have finished this course last September. As Gretchen Rubin points out in The Happiness Project:
So yeah, I feel great, and now I’m back to editing until the next distraction 🙂
Do you have anything you keep putting off that actually takes more of your energy NOT to do than if you would just get it done? Tell me about it, and I’ll root you on to scratch it off your list.
Until next time, thank you for being you.
Teri
P.S. The picture is of my grandmother, Leona, sunbathing with her girlfriends in the late 1920s. It has nothing to do with the newsletter other than the photo makes me smile and is far from curmudgeonly.
* No, selling only one house is not my goal, and yes, I understand to be a successful realtor, it takes hours of interactions and showing homes. Realtors have to go All In and be available. This is not a half-ass career. I’m lucky enough to know a very good one who is probably reading this newsletter.
** Yes, it’s only smart if I follow the above asterisk
*** I am going to try edit Tiger Drive on my trip. Some of my best writing happens in my head while walking. I even bought a keyboard for my iPad. The Tiger Drive Squad is so helpful!
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