Enough

I don’t drink it regularly anymore, but when I did, I found wine could be an expensive habit. It doesn’t have to be if you only drink the cheap stuff, which, if you know what to buy, can be okay. Never great, but good enough to have with dinner and enjoy while talking to a friend. The trouble can start when you splurge a little, or if you’re a wine steward like I was once upon a time and you’re tasting $100 bottles because it’s your job. Now you know the difference, and while you can go back to the cheap stuff, the memory of what a textured, complex red or white tastes like remains, and it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed with what was once perfectly fine.

I had a client once who was struggling with procrastination. She had a good job, but her dream was to be a writer. That dream could only be realized, however, if she actually wrote regularly, which she was not. We talked for several sessions about fear and focusing on getting into the Flow instead of results. Soon, she had a breakthrough! She was writing every day for the first time in years and she was loving it. Writing was fun again, and she wasn’t dreading the blank page anymore. In fact, she was enjoying it so much, her job, which until then had been a nice enough way to spend eight hours a day, suddenly seemed boring and meaningless. She wanted to quit.

For very practical reasons, I advised her to hold off on that choice, but I understood her desire to do so. Better is better, and once you know what better is and where it can be found, why would you want to go back? Of course, both wine and work involve money, which can complicate our decisions. I find survival a wholly uninspiring motivation, and money is often bound inextricably to the ceaseless business of not-dying. Joy and pleasure, on the other hand, are the savored fruits of living, and money can guarantee neither.

I know big houses and trips to Spain are nice – until, that is, they aren’t. One day they aren’t enough, and you’re drinking the expensive wine just to get drunk, really, to relieve the angst that comes from worrying if you’re doing enough, if you’ve made enough, if you are enough. You’ve only ever cared about how you feel, really. Nothing else actually matters, and isn’t it great when you sit at a blank page – one that is as blank for you as anyone on earth – and you get to ask yourself, “What’s the best feeling I know, and how can I turn it into a story to share with everyone?”

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com