So I’m vacuuming my office, in a modestly pissy mood, thinking I could be doing The Work on the thoughts that formed the cascade from remarkably peaceable to downright cranky (I’d better do this, I have to that, I should really, why don’t I?, etc., etc., ad nauseum) when it occured to me that I could do an article for my overdue ezine about this feast or famine, admiration or revulsion, self-love and self-disgust in terms of working for oneself.
Great topic. Timely. Familiar. (Talk about writing about something you know.) And immediately I began to muse about the complexity of offering my experience for your rumination. Do I tell all? (Really. That sounds about as appealing as flaunting my 53-year old buns in a string bikini. Not what I would call a public service.)
Okay. So I don’t tell all. How do I tell what I tell? Do I write from the midst of the maelstrom? If so, how do I communicate the vividness of my dilemmas without telling a tale of endless woe and intrigue?
On the other hand (my thinking would make Shiva tired), doesn’t working my way out of my mental messes before I write about them make me seem a bit much? “Here. Let me tell you about this experience I had that threw me (can you imagine?) for a loop before I (self-deprecating laugh) woke up and saw the light. Can you believe I was upset about that? I wouldn’t even bring it up except that you might also be upset by it, and I thought you might benefit from my insight.” Puh-h-lease.
And then I had the thought that sent me scurrying to the computer in mid-stride. “Damn it all. If I’m willing to bare my soul and share my struggles, is it too much to ask that I be afforded a little dignity?”
That cracked me up.
“Is it too much to ask?”
Well, obviously no. But here’s the thing: I have never in my life asked that question in the hope that it would be answered literally. I mean, how can anything be too much to ask? Just ask, for crying out loud.
And there’s the rub. Asking is not the problem; getting is. When I’m muttering (or whispering or hollering), “Is that too much to ask?,” I am really asking for a guarantee that my wish be granted.
Now there’s a yellow brick road leading to nowhere.
How many wishes have you held tight, unwilling to let them soar because you weren’t willing to risk a no answer? I know I’m responsible for at least 91,250 stillborn wishes. (That’s figuring an average of 5 wishes a day for 50 years. I figure I was probably more liberal with my wishes between birth and 3.)
Come on people, let’s set those buggers free.
Is that too much to ask?
