The Edge, the Fail, the Fun?

Zestful Blog Post #243

Earlier this year a friend called to see if I’d be interested in writing some marketing copy for a product line she was working with. The money was attractive, the work wouldn’t take a lot of time, and I felt I could produce quality copy, so I said sure. (Not gonna mention product or company, cuz confidentiality.)

“We want to be edgier than we’ve been up to now,” she said. With that in mind I wrote up a few ideas. After she reviewed them, my friend seemed concerned that the material was too edgy.

I said, “Well, you don’t really know where the edge is until you go over it and have a fail.” The concept wasn’t new, but I felt it worth mentioning. “Therefore,” I went on, “you have to be ready to accept and tolerate a failure. Then you know.”

Push through to failure, learn from the fail, let the fail suggest and help shape the next thing—early humans were doing this before they could paint horses on cave walls. But I got to thinking about writing, and being in the writing biz. For us as for almost everybody, it’s easier to avoid risk than court it. If a story succeeds, why not just write that same one—essentially—over and over? Imitate what others are doing. If you see something that looks like an edge, pull back. Why not watch and wait, and let somebody else go over it first?

Because if they find an air current and start to soar, you’ll be standing there wishing you’d had the guts. If they plunge down onto the rocks, you might feel relieved, but sooner or later you know they’re gonna crawl back up to the top. They’ll be wiser, plus they’ll have a tale of survival to tell…and perhaps monetize.

[Where are the edges here? Hm, maybe they depend on one's point of view… [photo by ES]]

The edge isn’t in the same place for everybody. And there are different classes and categories of edges, if you think about it. And hey, a scary edge could turn out to be false when you really get close, and you see there’s just a little gap that you can leap easily, or build a little bridge with yonder log. We all know these things deep down.

What’s the definition of edge, for the likes of us? It’s the place beyond which your end users will not go. The place where you start to lose more readers than you gain. That might be OK, depending on what you want. Edges are there to tempt us and teach us.

Have you ever known anyone to live a fail-free life?

Can you have fun testing an edge?

Is this all metaphor, or is it real?

Tell us what you think. To post, click below where it says, 'No Comments,' or '2 Comments,' or whatever.

If you'd like to receive this blog automatically as an email, look to the right, above my bio, and subscribe there. Thanks for looking in.

You Become Your Story

All my life I've been a seeker. And for much of my life I was a struggler. I thought the two went together. You know, trials and tribulations! Once you conquer all those dreadful obstacles life puts in your way, you can finally approach your true potential, right?

At some point it dawned on my that I had identified myself as a struggler. That was my story: I'm a person who has to struggle along and hope for breakthroughs.

Even though all the greatest teachers—spiritual and otherwise—try like hell to make us understand that all obstacles are self-imposed, it took me some time to start to believe it.

And then I understood that we become the stories we tell about ourselves.

These days I choose struggle only when I'm out of synch. As soon as I come to my senses,

I quit struggling and remember the peace and zest that are always within.

In You've Got a Book in You, I wrote this sentence:

If it's not fun, make it fun.

But to take it a step further:

If you can't make it fun, decide that it's fun.

Now that's radical. If you've been telling yourself writing is hard and life is unfair, try another way. Take these sentences from my current story and make them your own:

I'm a confident, poised person. Nothing bothers me. I'm a highly talented writer, and I have fun producing beautiful, zestful work every day.

Writing your own story is a wonderful thing to do. If you don't like your current story, write a new one. The story of who you want to be! Write it now!

I was talking about these things with a doctor who's a real healer: a guy who healed himself first, then broke all the rules for running a practice so he could be more effective. We agreed that one's story will fulfill itself, and we talked about how each of us changed our stories to change ourselves.

He said, "And if you don't keep changing your story, you'll stop growing!"

How wise. How wonderful! How zestful!

[photo note: Seaside flower photographed by ES.]

Tell me what you think! To post your ideas / comments, all of which I read and try to respond to, click below where it says, 'No Comments,' or '2 Comments,' or whatever.

If you'd like to receive this blog automatically as an email, look to the right, above my bio, and subscribe there. Thanks for looking in.