What do you stand for? Is it Love or Beauty or Home or Peace … or, perhaps, The Acoustic Guitar. What it is matters less than that you know it.
It’s the thing you’re a broken record about, the thing that stands the test of time. The thing your bones and cells know. It’s the thing you’d walk the plank for.
It’s the worthy devotion you carry with you, giving you confidence and buoyancy, even when you’re poked in the back by people who don’t agree or see, forced out toward the tip of the plank.
Make the plank just another way to enjoy a swim.
Run toward the end of the plank with a flippant bum-swish. Fling yourself off into the gathering dark with a wild “Yeeeee HAH!” Before you even hit the water you’ll out-grin the sharks to the point of freaking them out.
When you dare to stand for the song your very cells sing to you, the plank is only a springboard. And you sail from it into the air as the embodiment of a dream.
As the ship and its cheering, jeering mayhem sails off into the black distance, you float, at ease. That’s when the sea plane and the luxury yacht and the friendly sea serpent arrive, drawn by the lighthouse of you.
The story – the sharp sticks, the salt spray, the shark fins (the layoff, the weight gain, the creditors) – is not important. What’s important is that you tell yourself what you already know you stand for.
Everything else is merely darkness waiting for your shine.
{ PEP TALKS deliver a bracing blast of Grace }
Related reading: Pep Talk | Count Your Limbs, The Power of the Hero Alone
Flickr photo: Schiermonnikoog, by Bert K (revised by Grace)
3 Comments
bless you, bless you. perfect timing, as amazingly happens with your pep talks.
I stand for my art; and my art and heart sing at your joyful recognition that we sometimes stand in the darkness, waiting to shine.
Chery, you’ve been splendidly doing this for a while now — being willing to walk the plank for your stunning, weird, cool art and the lifestyle you want. It’s great to see you succeeding so well. And thank you.
This reminds me of a great marketing book for those of us who get hives from rah! rah! traditional / networking-heavy marketing tools and systems: Attracting Perfect Customers, by Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez. Their website is: http://www.perfectcustomers.com/Public/Home/index.cfm. I think that book must be where I first came across the idea of being the lighthouse.
Yes! Am entranced with the idea of doing a perfect 10 of a dive off my plank! Now I just have to summarize what I stand for in a word or two — or knowing me, three or four, LOL!