No Pain, No Gain

Right or wrong, I tend to think that nothing worth having ever came easy. In fact, for the most part, I think the most important accomplishments in our life should downright hurt.

Now, I'm not saying that nothing should come easy or it should be a constant hurt. If you date someone who hurts you terribly, you don't keep dating them. If you date someone who hurts you terribly, you learn something about yourself from that relationship and move on. (You also move on to someone who does not possess the same qualities/characteristics/immaturity that your previous significant other did. If you've never seen Straight Talk, a kind-of-wonderful, kind-of-awful movie starring Dolly Parton and James Woods, watch it just to understand this: if you keep finding yourself with corn flakes, despite what the outside label says, it's time to make a change.) 

It's really that I think the journey should hurt. If you ever sit next to me while I'm watching an episode of MTV's Made or A&E's Intervention, you might think I'm a terrrible person. I watch those shows and beg the counselors/trainers/family members to "break" the individual. I almost want to see them shattered  because I believe that only in breaking down our defenses and paradigms can we challenge ourselves to do and seek better.

I believe that when it comes to the things we want most in life, we have to try our hardest. Unfortunately, even when we try our hardest, we won't always succeed. And this is where the defensive part of us kicks in and says either not to try that hard, or not to try at all, for the sense of preserving our self-esteem, self-worth, etc. But, it's only in daring to truly fail that we do our best.

My second semester of graduate school, I signed up to audit a creative nonfiction class at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. The class was all real MFA students, and when it was time to go around the room and introduce ourselves, those students tossed around terms like "When I was at Rolling Stone" and "my grant for my book" and "numerous poetry awards."

I had, "I like to read." I cried every week before I had to go to that class. I felt inadequate and stupid. I felt like there was nothing I could offer.

I psyched myself out badly, and I also became so afraid of the class' reaction to my work, that I couldn't hear my own voice. When it was time to present my piece to the class, there were barely any reactions because the piece was so terrible. (In a workshop, talking means people are engaged, the absence of talking means there might not be much to take away.) The comment I remember most was, "What you probably need to do is sit down and just write what comes to you without judging it at first."

I knew it was English 101 advice, and I knew it.

A week later, I ran into another student who was supposed to present a piece on the same day I did. "I just couldn't get my draft together," she said. "Everything I wrote just seemed to suck, and I couldn't let anyone see it."

"You shouldn't be afraid," I said. "You saw what I turned in." 

"Yeah," she said, and then she couldn't look me in the eye.

In the weeks leading up to my next workshop for the class, I had a fair amount of time to reflect. A lot of me wanted to drop the class -- what was I doing there anyway? All the class did was make my cry and question my chosen vocation.

I also realized, though, that I had already failed miserably. No one in that class thought I could write -- teacher, peers and myself included. I couldn't do any worse. So, even if I dropped the class, I wouldn't get any of my dignity or sense of self back.

Instead of dropping, I went to work. I threw out 9 of the 11 pages I had written. I started fresh, and since I had already messed up so royally by trying to please everyone else and play it safe, it seemed best to just listen to myself. Any writer, or human being, will tell you that voice tends to matter the most anyway.

For my next workshop, the class was engaged. Everyone had comments. The girl who I thought hated me led the discussion and pointed out turns of phrase that she loved. My professor said, "This is what a revision should be. Excellent work. Really."

I was elated.

Of course, not all of my stories about failing have such a nice ending. Until recently, I thought I might be doomed in the relationship department. It took far more than a semester's worth of failing and self-doubt to get that one on the right track. And, I still haven't found a job since getting laid off nine months ago. However, in general, while failure and disappointment hurt like hell at the time, I would not trade the hurt for the freedom it provides -- the freedom to take your own path.

When I was nineteen, I knew that I was miserable at school. A lot of people tried to tell me that it was just life as a freshman, that once I made more friends/joined a sorority/got a new boyfriend, I'd be happy as a clam. But, I knew better.

I'll never forget sitting down with the dean of what was then the third ranked university in the country. "Why would you ever want to leave our little utopia?" he said.

"It's not a utopia for me," I said.

"I'll sign this little paper," he said, referring to a form I needed to transfer schools. "But you're making the biggest mistake of your life."

Personally, I don't believe in telling any teenager that a decision that doesn't involve heroin is the biggest mistake of his or her life. I also think, that no matter who the authority is, when it comes down to it, it's just one person's opinion. And who's to say the best authority on me and my own well-being, isnt, well, me?

I probably could have saved myself from a lot of bumps along the way, but I would have had to play it safe, and I'm not so sure I like safe. I like different, and inventive, and new, and even radical. I don't want to be told what to do, I want to find it for myself.

Maybe not everyone has to hurt, and maybe not everyone likes it. Maybe I only think hurt is worthwhile because it creates such a good contrast to happiness, just like dark and light. But, really, I think that without hurt, I wouldn't have figured out how to listen to myself, and that, as well as the choices I make as a result -- be it a romantic partner, career or cereal combination -- is worth the risk, the potential failure and the pain. 

Plus, there's only one person's eyes that I need to be a success in, and that's my own. And, when I can really convince myself of that one, it's the most freedom I've every known.

P.S. This particular entry? Not so easy to illustrate. Hence, the weird graphic of a broken heart. Please just try to go with it.