The Worst

I heard the actor and comedian Jim Carey tell the story of serving as a warmup act for a band back in the early days of his career. It’s an awkward combination, a standup and a heavy metal group, but he needed the work and so there he was. The audience wasn’t having any of it. They were drunk or stoned or both, and they wanted some raucous music, not a guy doing impressions of Ronald Reagan and Johnny Carson. There was very little laughter and a lot of boos and calls for him to get the hell off the stage.

Then, in the middle of a joke, a wet towel came flying out of the crowd and struck him square in the face. It was soaked, he immediately recognized, with urine.

He stood for a moment as more boos and jeers rained down on him. As a performer, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than what he was experiencing right then. This, he realized, was as bad as it would get – and he was glad. He was glad, because he was okay. He wasn’t liking it, but he knew he was going to go on. If getting hit with a urine-soaked towel wouldn’t stop him, then nothing would.

It’s worth asking yourself what you think the worst thing that could happen might be. Rejection? If you’ve experienced that and are reading this, if you’re still writing, apparently it couldn’t stop you. Bad reviews? Low sales? What is so bad that you’d simply have to stop? There’s only one thing, really, and it is truly the worst. It comes in a number forms, but its effects are always the same. It’s the thought, “I’m no good,” or, “Nothing ever changes,” or, “This is going nowhere.” Think any version of these and all your energy and enthusiasm empties out of you. Without interest and curiosity and excitement there’s no pleasure in doing anything. Without pleasure, life has no value whatsoever.

I long believed there was something far worse than a thought that could happen to me. I was sure of it, and yet whatever that thing was never seemed to happen. It was always on the horizon, along with some notion of the happiness success would bring. Meanwhile, I found myself in and out of a hopeless despair that seemed all-encompassing when it arrived, and like an odd dream when it left. It was hard to believe that something really terrible could simply fade away as I changed my mind. Hard to believe, but, I would eventually learn, not impossible.

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