I can’t talk about my years in the wilderness, my persistent hope despite long odds, and then breaking through into something resembling fulfillment.
Well, I CAN talk about the wilderness part, but not the rest, because I’m still in the wilderness, which is pretty neat since that’s often the best part of the story anyway; and once you’re out, that part of the story ends.
Steven Pressfield, however, can talk about the whole arc of hope.
The wilderness comes first
Pressfield hoped for 17 years before earning a paycheck, and then ended up a novelist, screenwriter, and an author of historical fiction (some of which even serves as curriculum for soldiers).
Let’s let him tell his own story of his wilderness. Substitute your specific hope for his of writing:
When I was struggling to teach myself how to write, I was so far gone that the idea of choice never entered the equation. The question wasn’t, Does this make sense? Am I getting anywhere?
The question was, “Am I out of my mind? How much farther down is this road gonna take me?”
From time to time I’d make a stab at returning to reality. I’d get a real job. I’d work hard, I’d make friends, sometimes I even had a girlfriend. But I could never stick. I had to write. All through this time, I was estranged from my family.
My Dad could make no sense of the choices I had made; I broke his heart. I had long ago driven my wife away. My mother thought I was crazy.
What mainstream friends I had were on my side, but, on the rare occasions when I saw them, they regarded me partly with pity, partly with puzzlement, but mainly with that look that people get when they’re afraid they’re standing too close to something contagious
The wilderness is called that for a reason; all hope seems lost
Your particular wilderness, of course, looks different from his. But if you have any passionate attachment or commitment to your hope, you probably can relate. Pressfield says he felt he was crazy, he had no reason to hope, and even his mother ignored him.
Sometimes in a city at night I would walk past a ballet studio and look up at the dancers hard at work. I envied them. They had each other, they had a troupe, a class. I envied actors who had rep groups and theaters.
I had nobody. Not a soul who believed in me or thought I wasn’t crazy.
What keeps a person going? As I write this, I’m aware that there are people reading who know exactly what I’m talking about. Young painters and film-makers and novelists who are in that exact same place. Lemme say this to you:
Don’t quit. Bleed from your eyeballs if you have to, but don’t stop.
What kept me going was the same thing that kept those dancers working at the barre. I just loved it. Even when the work was garbage, which was 99.9% of the time, I had to keep trying—and if you’re trying now, God bless you. Keep hammering. If you have a choice,
Pressfield tells the story of a painter friend who “beat her brains out to get better” but didn’t. She kept painting these little paintings that weren’t any good. A year later he caught up with her and her work was suddenly spectacular. No one knew what had happened, but she broke though and “found her gift.”
What if the depth of your wilderness was equal to the depth of the coming fulfillment of your hope?
Makes it feel a little different, eh?
Pressfield’s words for you and me, looking back at us from outside the wilderness:
“Don’t quit.
Keep slugging.
It takes time.
There’s a price.
Keep hammering.”
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Thanks for reading! A Scary Hope eBook is coming, probably by Christmas. It will contain much of what you’ve read here during the 31+ Days of Scary Hope : encouragement to go from IS to COULD BE, plus several additional chapters. To start at the beginning of the series, click HERE. To subscribe to receive each new post for free, click HERE.
