Are you careful what you wish for?
My hero is a weatherman I read about in high school. He supposedly loved his job so much he was embarrassed to get paid for it.
Can you imagine?
I did. I imagined that feeling so intently and so frequently that here I am. I love my work, sure, but I feel guilty when (for example) someone buys one of my books. I always want to send one from my stash. My weatherman story has become a weapon of self-destruction.
And ask people to post reviews of a book? Are you kidding? I mean, I’ve done it -- but I still haven’t recovered. It took that much out of me. Doesn’t asking for love taint that? The reviews I cherish the most, after all, were unsolicited. Freely given. And often surprises.
It didn’t bother me to ask people to fill out a comment card when I was a cocktail waitress. The lounge where I worked was classy and fun; by the time customers started raving about the great service it was still something else to tease them about. But that was “real” work.
You see what I just did? I just found out why so much of what I do is a labor of love as opposed to compensation. I don’t think of it as real work.
Which is sad, because for someone who flies mostly under the radar I’ve had many glimpses of the ways I most want to be useful. Helping a man, despondent after scary news from his doctor, with a path forward after he listened to a presentation about my diet. Inspiring a mother to get behind her daughter’s dream of becoming an actress after hearing my interview with a casting director. Inspiring another mom to stop shaming her daughter for checking a light switch over and over before she leaves a room (which of course just makes that worse and gives the child another problem, the guilt) because I’ve lived that story, too.
It isn’t so much that I want more money (though who doesn’t?) as it is not wanting to stop with those I’ve already helped. I want to reach more of them, and the only way to do that is to share what I’m up to. I resolve to take a few seconds on every show, for example, to invite people to rate and review it. More might be inclined to check it out, which means more might be helped by something we cover. It’s just math.
The War of Art’s Steven Pressfield says many readers of his book had a decision to make. Are they worthy of pursuing their dreams as artists? Wishful Thinking author Frederick Buechner might call it the Lord’s work: “It’s where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”