Writing a good life

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. – Thomas Carlyle

I am so struck by the ability some folks have to write the life they want and then find a way to live the story.

By process of free association, this reminds me of something I once heard. A colleague, who had left her professional job to work as a diversity trainer and advocate, explained, “I had to quit my job to do my work.”

There’s something here about the difference between making do and making a life, between finding a job and finding your work, between trudging through and dancing through life. Between writing your life and just reading it. And maybe between having a dream and having a bottom line.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with several people who have found the time, the courage, and the persistence to write their lives well and then live them accordingly. One is a concert pianist who spent her working life as an accountant, accompanying community choruses on the side. In her retirement, she is free to pursue her love of music, gently wrapped around the other things her life holds. I’ve watched (as much as heard) her play, and the joy she takes in her music glows. Her partner spent her working years doing a variety of work, much of it having to do with sign making (which, it turns out, is way more complicated than you might imagine). Now retired, she is free to pursue her true passion: painting … not signs, but pictures. She’s especially fond of gritty, funky fishing ports, and you can see in her paintings how she loves them.

We joined them for dinner and a Cheryl Wheeler concert. Cheryl is a singer/songwriter whose love for her work rings in her songs and leaks out in her on-stage banter. So do her wit (consider the song, “My Cat’s Birthday”), her love of nature (“When Fall Comes to New England”), and her social consciousness (“Don’t Forget the Guns”). I know none of these folks well, but I know they have found their work, they’re living well-written lives.

Then, we went to a farewell party for friends who are leaving town. One of them has found the job of her dreams: directing a summer camp on an island off the coast of Washington. We have heard both of them talk about their “dream job”—it would have something to do with nature, something to do with organizing leisure fun, something to do with creativity: music, art, play. While they searched for that dream, they worked at non-dream jobs. The new camp director has been “applying” for this job for nearly a year. When it came through, it was easy to see that they had found a way to live their dream. Her partner, whose heart lives in the northwest, will do programming at the camp. She’s going back to her cherished northwest to do the work she loves, too.

None of this is world-shaking … at least in the usual sense. But what a gift, to find your work, to live the story that you write in your dream moments.

This doesn’t require a job at an outdoor camp, a life as a musician, or that long-awaited retirement. Some folks find it in the work they do every day. Many years ago, I came across this quote: 

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.” 

When I read it, I thought it described my life perfectly (with a little editing to remove the sexism). I had the great good fortune to have found work that I loved. I could ask no other blessing; I couldn’t have written a better story. And of course now, I have a chance to write another one. Interestingly, this quote came from the same person as the one at the top of the page about a well-written life. Thomas Carlyle. I think he was onto something.