No More Excuses

My friend Dave is a career counselor – and this is ironic, because his job is driving him nuts. For some time now, he's been thinking he ought to make a change, but it hasn't been clear what, exactly, he ought to do instead of what he's doing, or how this as-yet-unknown alternative thing is going to pay the bills.

Dave's predicament puts him in familiar territory: welcome to the land of Jarvikistan, where Tyler has just re-invented himself as a batik artist after ditching two careers, one in Landscape Architecture and one in Molecular Genetics, and Tanya is still dithering around about what she wants to be when she grows up, and fourteen-year-old Everest looks at his parents and thinks, “I am never going to be that lame.”

Recently, Dave came to Portland for a visit, and we had a little career counseling session. Tyler's advice, boiled down to its essence and served up with a stale Matzo, went something like, “So, stop kvetching and quit already.” Since I'm currently floundering with questions about what, if anything, I ought to do about supplementing the family coffers (my editing + Tyler's batik = not much $$$), I was a bit more compassionate.

But then Dave said something really strange: “You know, all this career stuff – I don't really care that much about it. When I think about what I really want to do, what's been left undone in my life, it's photography and playing the saxophone and learning to draw.”

I was floored. “Wait,” I said. “Your camera broke – what, two, three years ago? And you haven't gotten a new one?”

He acknowledged that this was so.

“And the saxophone – you don't even have a saxophone.”

No, he agreed, no saxophone. His parents had gotten him a clarinet when he was a teen, but he'd never really gotten into playing it.

“Well, have you ever signed up for an art class?”

No, he had not. “I've got art trauma,” he explained.

Apparently, way back in first grade, the teacher at the Catholic school he'd attended had somehow managed to convince him that he didn't have an artistic bone in his body. When little Dave colored his pumpkin purple instead of orange, Sister Adela did not approve. When little Dave ran out of space underneath his picture and had to write the last few letters of his name up the side of the page, Sister Adela was not pleased.

“Sounds like you need a whole box of purple crayons,” said Tyler.

“You can draw in my new coloring book,” said 3-year-old Ravenna. “It has ponies in it!”

Which brings me to my pithy point of the day:

When we look at the excuses other people make about why they keep not doing the things they say they want to do, it's obvious if they're making mountains out of molehills. However, when it comes to surmounting our own obstacles, we always act like we're going to have to spend our entire life savings on high-tech climbing gear. And we'll probably spend years thumbing through REI catalogs before we finally see that we can just step over whatever's in our way.

I think we talked Dave into taking an art class.

As for me – well, it may be time to write those essays I've been meaning to write for, um, years.

So, anyone know where I can find a pair of crampons? You know, those things you strap to your hiking boots when you have to get past a wall of sheer ice? 'Cause I think I'm going to need them.