1. It’s about character, not personality.
2. You’re a responsible creator, not an (un)empowered victim.
3. Your choices today determine your life tomorrow.
4. There is justice in the world.
5. Hard work isn’t just a fad.

Create or Be Created

<2> You are a responsible creator, not an (un)empowered victim.

My friend Mr. Webster says this about empowerment: to empower means “to give legal or moral power or authority to; to authorize” or “To give physical power or force; to enable.” Fine. To be empowered means that someone who already had power had decided to confer upon you some of that legal or moral authority or physical ability.

Empowerment has been a popular term for a long time now, associated with women’s liberation and civil rights and affirmative action. I think that if people campaigning for these rights truly thought about what the word means, they would find a new one.

If you depend on someone else to give you power, then you are helpless if they decide to take it away. Empowerment is temporary and under someone else’s control. (I think the answer to this problem is to throw “self-” in front of the word, which is more and more common but doesn’t change the word itself.)

The Alternative to Empowerment

Mr. Webster says of our alternate term, create: “To produce; to bring into being from nothing; to cause to exist. …To make or form, by investing with a new character; …To beget; to generate; to bring forth. …To make or produce, by new combinations of matter already created, and by investing these combinations with new forms, constitutions and qualities; to shape and organize. …To form anew; to change the state or character; to renew.”

To be a creator, then, which simply means one who creates, is to quit waiting for someone else to hand you the force, power, energy, ability, or authority you’re lacking. To be a creator is to go forth and find it, make it, produce it, arrange it, generate it, shape it for yourself. That’s real power.

Life as a Victim

What does life look like as a victim? Victims – whether empowered or unempowered – are at the mercy of forces greater than themselves. If you are a victim, then anything can make your life miserable. Your job, your hair, your wardrobe malfunction, your old car, your sister’s success, your mom’s nagging, your husband’s insensitivity, your boss’s ignorance, your customer’s rudeness, your empty refrigerator, broken tv, overdue library books, hangnail on your little finger.

You ride the roller coaster of empowerment and its counterpart: unempowerment. You’re up when things go your way, when you get what you want, when the forces that be cooperate and provide for you as they should. You’re down when the weather is bad, when the government doesn’t send the check, when the parents don’t bail you out, when the kids don’t behave. You feel entitled to certain privileges, yet helpless to do anything if they are withheld. That’s how being a victim is. You’re not the biggest player on your field; you’re just a little pawn on somebody else’s field.

Get Your Own Field

The solution is to get off the big field and onto your own place. It may be smaller, but it is yours. Being on your own turf, though, means that you are the only one responsible for what happens there. You’re in charge. You’re it. If the buck is getting passed around, it stop at you when you choose to live in your own space.

That’s why people keep on being the passive victims of an inconsiderate world. It is easier. It feels safer. It requires less thought, less energy, less initiative.

Life Welfare

You can suck in the media pipeline instead of thinking for yourself: welfare for the brain.

You can eat the overdone legalism of a religious system instead of believing for yourself: welfare for the soul.

You can embrace the trends and mores of popular culture instead of being yourself: welfare for the personality.

If you are a victim, you have a pitiful life and I feel sorry for you. I hope you will decide to quit being a victim. I hope you will decide that the easy ride isn’t worth the loss of real personhood. I hope you will figure out that the world needs a few more thoughtful leaders and a few less brainless followers. I hope you will risk the misunderstanding that always comes when you go your own way. I hope you will quit hiding out.

“I Hate Pretentious Bloggers Who Think They Know Something About My Life…”

If that’s what you’re thinking right now – or something like it – then, most likely, you are living as a victim. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be offended by what I’ve said. I do want to clarify something, though:

I can talk about living as a victim because that’s how I’ve lived much of my life.

It’s taught to us, victimhood. Part of the American gift is automatic inclusion into a fringe group. No matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you’re about, there is a fringe group for you. Figure out what it is, and you gain an automatic, unquestionable pass into the cushy life of a semi-empowered victim.

For me, I’m a woman, so that gets me in the Misunderstood, Mistreated, Still Having to Deal with Sexism Women’s Club. I’m from Mississippi, so I can also join Underfunded, Underappreciated Southern Culture Club. I’m married, which opens a whole host of options, from the Married to a Crazy Spontaneous Man Who Does Inexplicable Things Wives’ Club to the My In-Laws Live in the Same Town Club to the more general Why Doesn’t He Know I’m Always Right Federation of Tragic Genius Wives. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no. I’ve got two kids under two: I can work that one with the best of them. I’m a freelance writer, and we all know that there’s nothing writers like more than writing about how hard it is to be a writer.

How to Be a Creator

I choose to be in the victim-entitlement clubs regularly, still. I should know better. My husband gets home late from work, didn’t call to let me know, supper is warmed-over and I had to bathe and bed the kids by myself. Guess what I’m thinking? How dare he not even call me? He knows better. I put up with so much. I work hard with these kids, I try to earn a little money writing, all he has to do is pick up the phone and call me. Sheesh. I’ve been really patient about this, but I’m just about up to here. And I waited to eat with him, now my stomach hurts, I’m not going to sleep good. I’ll be tired tomorrow. I won’t get a thing done. I’m so behind on all this junk, and I still need to pay the bills. It would be so nice if he would just give me a little time, a little warning, maybe a little more help around here…

Yep, that’s me flashing my “Over-worked Mother, Taken-for-Granted Wife” club card. (It gets you a 5% discount on Haagen-Dazs at participating grocery stores.)

Or I could be different. Sometimes I catch myself. How dare he not even call me? He knows better. I put up with so much. I work hard with these kids, I try to earn a little money… … …Like he’s doing. He knows I’ve been worried about making the bills. He’s probably staying late to finish up some extra work. He gets so busy during the day I know sometimes he doesn’t even have a chance to call. I know he hates to work late, too. He’s so tired and he just wants to get home and relax. I’m sure he would be here if he could. I’ll just go ahead and eat supper so I feel good, then I’ll read that new book I got until he gets home. The kids are in bed already, so I’ve actually got a little quiet time here to just chill out…

That’s a creator. That’s me, playing on my own field instead of being a victim on somebody else’s. That’s me, making a choice to think the best about a situation and use whatever happens for something positive.

That’s what I want to be all the time. Change will always come. Circumstances will leave us reeling. Bad stuff is inevitable. Being a victim is not inevitable; it’s a choice.

Credits:

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary available online at mshaffer.com.

Empowerment Zone graphics from TheGreatExperiment.Homestead.com.
Cool creation-like universe space image from the Nasa Image Gallery.

Bully graphic from ForumBullies.com.

Monks on the roller coaster from Memyi.us.

Cool Hiding behind tree graphic from KittyLoco.com.

Woman Power Logo from thelark06 at Freewebs.com.

Drool-inducing bowl of chocolate peanut butter ice cream from (where else?) Haagen-Dazs.com.

From The Growing Life:

“The process of baselining

involves writing down everything you don’t have to have, be, or do, to live a happy and fulfilled life (for more on this, see here). For example, I don’t have to own nice furniture (thrift store furniture works just fine) or a house, I don’t have to finish graduate school, I don’t have to be able to tell a coherent story about how I make money. If you’re serious about doing a thorough job of baselining, you’ll download this spreadsheet and write down how much money and time you’ll eliminate by doing away with existing possessions, obligations, and self-images…What I’ve found is that my dreams naturally emerge after I’ve eliminated bullsh*t assumptions about what I have to be, do, and have in order to be happy (if this doesn’t happen for you, then simply do some dreamlining after you’ve done some baselining).”

Here’s a 2 minute list of things I don’t have to be, do, or have in order to be happy:

have a new car

Let me just see if that eliminates anything from my to-do list. Hmm. Nope, not yet. I think if I’d gone on for another two minutes I might have hit some new material.

Baselining with a Vengeance

I didn’t know this was called baselining. I’ve been doing it already, because I discovered after Baby #1 and then again, with a vengeance, after Baby #2, that if I try to do it all I will go insane and take everyone with me.

It makes sense though. My sister and I were talking yesterday about this concept. She just got married after being a single Mom. She and her husband and kids are moving across the country in less than 2 weeks. She’s trying to finish up her job, pass on her responsibilities there, pack up her house, plan for and organize four people, help her kids adjust to her new husband, help her husband adjust to being a Dad, and keep herself sane. At this point, baselining is necessary for sanity. There’s just no way to do it all. There are too many options, too many possibilities for one person.

Baselining Is Better when Done Consciously

We all do this, we just don’t all realize it. We make a thousand decisions every day about what we will or will not do. If you eat a burger for lunch, you’re not eating a fish. If you go out to dinner, you’re not cooking. If you fill up the tank tonight, you’re not doing it tomorrow. If you call your best friend, you’re not calling your Mom and sister and Aunt Jeannine too, at least not tonight. If you choose to relax and take some time for yourself, you’re not giving that time to anyone else.

Baselining is a matter of survival in an environment of overwhelming options. Every Yes means a No, and the sooner we realize that and become okay with it, the better off we will be. If we don’t see that a No is a good thing, that a No frees us for a better thing, that a No eliminates mediocrity from our lives and gives us space and time for what we really care about, then we will spin away our time accomplishing lots of unimportant details, feeling guilty for not doing more, and feeling bitter for having to feel guilty while we’re wearing our tails out trying to do it all.

You know I’m right.

We really need to stop, breathe, and make some conscious decisions to salvage our lives from the beastly clutches of the DoItAll monsters. It’s just not worth it.

So ask yourself a simple question: What really matters today? What will happen if I don’t do some of these things I have obligated myself to do? Will I survive? Will other people survive? Will anyone even care?

We have a lot more freedom than we give ourselves. It’s time we start using it.

Image Credits: Make-Up Woman in Car from Artfiles.

Multi-tasking Mama from LTDChix.com.

Wonder Woman from HumungoComics.com.

I was impressed. The book is directed toward teenagers, which, strangely enough, is a group that no longer accepts me as one of their own. (I am still a little hurt by this.) The book’s premise seems to be (understand, I have only read an excerpt, not the whole book, so I’m sailing a little blind here) that the “Myth of Adolescence” has turned a group that should be vibrant, energetic, unstoppable into a lethargic and rebellious one.

What a waste. As the book says, “We waste some of the best years of our lives and never reach our full God-given potential. We never attempt things that would stretch, grow and strengthen us. We end up weak and unprepared for the amazing future that could have been.”

I’m 26. My husband is 25. We’ve both been working since we were about 14. Of course, it was part-time during the school year, and some of my earlier jobs were just baby-sitting. But at that tender, adolescent age, our parents expected us to begin to take responsibility, to pay for stuff we wanted, to contribute. We didn’t have to put grocery money into the family pot or anything, but that probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

We’re not rich, by any means. But we have worked for and gained an independence that many of my peers seem unable to find. And we’re not talking teenagers! It starts then, back at 13, or before, maybe at 10, or 6, when the whole world revolves around a child’s happiness. At what point do you let the child know that the point of the world isn’t to make him happy? It’s a sad awakening, and I have friends who are still fighting that knowledge as hard as they can.

Some people manage to avoid acknowledging that truth their entire lives, and they are the ones who Alex and Brett describe on their blog as “ Peter Pans who shave.” (This article they wrote describes more about “adultescence.”)

I see that in my generation, now in our mid-twenties. I see that in the one coming behind me, the teens with shiny laptops and enormous libraries of music on their iPods, but with no vision for the future, no library of skills or knowledge or character from which to draw.

We’re going to be playing catch-up for a while. We better start getting over our own lies and pointing the way.

Why trade today for someday? Why push our dreams back day after day, until years roll by? Sometimes we forget the dreams. We let the daily complexities overwhelm us. We let the obligations reach a level we can barely survive. We let our lives become controlled chaos, and all our time, energy, and resources go toward holding it together one more day. We never give ourselves a moment to ask what would happen if we let go. Would the world really end? Would our world end?

We need to end this chaotic, frenzied world, this empty, lethargic one. You come home from running all day and collapse in front of a box to watch other people have fun doing the things you wish you could do. Underneath the chatter, you are bored. You never stir the deeper water. The foaming and rushing on top make you seem busy, active, productive, but you are not drawing from the greater resources. You are not even allowing yourself to look that deep.

Deep in that undisturbed place are the visions and dreams. You sunk them like a pirate’s chest. You left them there to wait. You wait too long, you’ll die and they will die with you.

Meanwhile, there are storms and troubles building on the surface. You are navigating your boat down the river and you have to pay attention. If you jump off to dive into deeper places, the boat will hit the bank. You’ll lose direction. You’ll lose everything. The wind will fling your vessel and all it holds up and down the river. You will surface and find yourself alone, struggling to swim with no place to rest.

But if you wait until everything is calm, find a good place to tie up your boat, secure your stuff, clean up the storm damage, make sure everyone is okay… the next wind will be rising. Too late to dive in now; you’ve got to handle this first. Maybe then…

That perfect calm never comes. We have to find a way to live, to keep cruising down the river, maintaining a steady course, and get to that treasure. Nobody wants a shipwreck. But what is the good of an empty ship? Or one with a hold full of junk, haphazard leftovers you skimmed off the surface as you floated by? You may get to port safely, but what will you have once you arrive? The treasure is not for later; it is for now. If it is truly treasure, it will survive the using, the journey, and so will we.

We have to clear out the junk so there is room for the treasure. We must invent ways to handle the storms and keep going in the right direction. We must find a way to get down, get deep, get to what really matters and bring it into our ship. We must make those dives often so that as we use our treasure along the way we can replenish our store.

It seems impossible, but it isn’t. There are ways to live deeper than this surface scurrying that we do. As we begin to wake up, we can find them.

The first step toward fulfilment is dissatisfaction.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.

It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. (From the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield)

The work of art, of creation, is given all of us.

We have a calling. Starting a profitable business, baking cookies, writing poetry, raising children, running a shop, fixing cars, making crafts, designing shoes, doing accounts, designing curriculum, painting, singing, reading, reviewing, helping, overseeing, managing, organizing; whatever the term, some action, some work for life, is yours. It belongs to you and you belong to it. No one is relieved of this responsibility. No one is inartistic, or unable, just dull, unmotivated, lazy, fearful.

Every attempt we make toward something higher and better finds resistance.

We camouflage the call. We are afraid to see it. We make it all so complicated when most of it is so very, very simple. Go check the Self-Help section. Hundreds of titles all say essentially the same thing. This month’s version has newer packaging and a cuter catch-phrase. But it’s either 1) stuff you know instinctively or 2) drivel to make you feel good about ignoring the stuff you know instinctively.

This article, for instance.

You don’t need it.

You know there are things you need to do in life. You know there are particular things for you to do. You feel the tug. You know there is resistance because you are the one resisting. You even know what to do about the resistance, don’t you? No? Can’t remember? I’ll give you a hint:

Ignore the resistance and do what you’re supposed to do anyway. Take action.

(Okay, that was more than a hint.) But you knew already! You could probably write this article but for one small quality I (we assume) have and you (we assume) would like to have more of: the voice of successful experience.

Oh yes, you have experience.

You have knowledge. but you’re reading this article on the premise that I, the Author-with-a-capital-A, not only have the knowledge but also have the map to the secret goldmine you need: success in applying the knowledge. That little glimmer of gold is what keeps the self-help genre alive. If we share the same knowledge, have similar experience, but I have succeeded and you have not (yet, you say to yourself), then I must have the secret. The key. The difference. It’s in this article, somewhere. If you read it all, it will be bestowed upon you, like a prize for wading through all the paragraphs: the final key to insert into the slot which will unlock the door which will release the treasure of your own creative genius successfully!

It’s just a flash in the pan.

Ever hear of fool’s gold? It’s just a sparkly mineral, but there were lots of gold rush miners who got pretty excited. For a while.

The only thing I know that you don’t know is that there is no secret to success.

Understand, I’m not saying there is nothing secret about the deep, divine, meaningful, beautiful, worthwhile things of life. There is, and all of us struggle continually to get closer, get more, get immersed, or else to utterly deny its existence. We identify with different parts of the struggle. Marriage, parenting, organizing, self-esteem, setting limits, creative flow. Whatever. The common, and misleading, theme is this: You are a Victim and I, the Helpful Author/Owner/Guru will set you free. I have the key that you, poor child, were never given. I have the question you didn’t know you could ask. I’m not better or smarter or worthier… just luckier.

Here’s a simple idea we need to deconstruct:

If I’m not successful (moreso than you) because I am better/smarter/worthier than you, why should you listen to me? Don’t you want a teacher who is wiser than you? Yes. You do. Heretofore you have gone right along with (sincere or not) self-deprecating authors and have attributed success to that lucky something, that missing piece they somehow found that you somehow missed. They were good enough to share it with you. That’s only right, really.

Let’s rethink all that.

I’m not saying I am smarter or better or worthier than you. I’m probably not. What I am saying is this: there is no secret that lucky people know and unlucky people don’t. Success depends upon your choices and your actions, your habits and your diligence, your persistence and your willingness to work hard, every day, until you see movement. Then you work harder. You are not the victim of cosmic oversight.

Success isn’t a given to the lucky few; there are no automatic winners and automatic victims.

But we are enamored of victimization. It is appealing. It removes the responsibility from our shoulders. We can sigh and say, Oh well, it isn’t my fault. But if it isn’t your fault, my friend, then you really are powerless to fix it. Sure, there is resistance to action, to change, to forward movement, to positive choices. Resistance comes from everywhere: your family, your friends, the culture, the workplace, your peers, your church, your social life. The only Resistance that matters, though, the only one that can actually stop you, is what you allow to come from yourself.

We all have a calling, a work.

Destiny. Fate. Choice. Success. It’s what you burn with, what you hate hearing about when it isn’t about you, what you can’t stop thinking about, what you love, what you drift to while you’re waiting for the plane to take off or the game to start or your friend to call. Some of us have covered it deeply and can’t even call its name right now. We may have forgotten, but it is a temporary forgetting, one we walked into voluntarily. Somehow we forgot how to stop forgetting. We fixate on little things, details, methods, tradition, criticism, circumstance and let the most important things drift away.

The call isn’t lost.

The work, the sanctity, the dream, the draw: it is just buried. It is not my job to tell you what it is. You know it’s there. Keep walking toward something better, even if in little steps. Resist the Resistance. You will begin to uncover treasure.