Ready for something that will change your life?

Maybe you’re like me.  Maybe there’s been something that you have known for a long time that you are supposed to do, but you haven’t done it.  Right now, if you have something like that, you know exactly what that “thing” is.  For me, it was beginning to write for the world to see.  There’s been a voice inside my soul that has been incessant for at least 25 years telling me to write.  It hasn’t been a “screaming” voice, it’s just been my even-toned constant companion. 

But I haven’t done it.  I didn’t know if it was telling me the truth or if I was just vainly imagining some glory that I wished I could achieve.  I didn’t know where to start.  I didn’t know to what end my efforts were supposed to come to, was it for a book, was if for magazine articles, should it be fiction/non-fiction... and I would get stuck.  I reasoned that I must have larger blocks of dedicated time to do it, that small snippets of 15 minutes here or there wasn’t enough, that I would have to wait until the kids were grown up... But something inside of me didn’t really believe the very words I was answering back to the world and to that voice calling out within me.  I knew it was just excuses, mostly out of fear.  

My kids and my husband would tell me that I should be writing.  My oldest son has been my most recent impetus as he is working on delivering what he has to give to the world, overcoming all the things that try to prevent him and he recognizes the same in me.  A couple of months ago he told me I had to read this book and it changed my life and cracked the cement that had held me bound for so long.  

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  I consumed it within 2 days time.  I felt like the author was my dear uncle and had taken out his pen to write me a personal letter of the most timely instructions I had ever received.  The book impels you to listen to that voice, the one that you know all too well within your soul.  That voice is not the voice of false hallucination, it is the voice of your gift crying out to be delivered to the world.  

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the last page of the book,

“If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, you hurt your children.  You hurt me.  You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and the Almighty who created you and only you with your unique gifts for the soul purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act.  It is a gift to the world.  Don’t cheat us of your contribution, give us what you’ve got.”

What does that say to you?

Do it.