Hanging by a Thread - September MuseLetter

This certainly seems to be our current position individually and as a Nation. And whether we welcome it or not, change is inescapable. While I admit that I know little about governmental budgeting, the International Monetary Fund, or why an entire generation of policy makers became so hypnotized by Wall Street (though I suspect it was the sizable portfolios), what I do know, I know. And the most valuable part of that statement is ... I trust what I know. How rarely do we allow ourselves to listen deeply? Instead, we fill our lives with the clamor of distraction and never-ending consumption, blocking access to the wisdom and insights that may indeed frighten us, but could also save us.

Spring of last year, I was deeply humbled by the toughest financial challenge of my life. The second most challenging was during the California recession of 1992-93 while working as an independent jewelry designer in Los Angeles. Both of these periods of economic crisis and change stirred up a perplexing mixture of apprehension and self-doubt. But oddly, as I confronted the sobering trials of last year, I was flooded with the memory of a much earlier time in my life, in fact ... a very magical time.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.

-T.S. Eliot

Back in the 1970's at the tender age of twenty, I established and operated an import clothing, jewelry and home accessories company in Nacogdoches, Texas. I attribute three crucial ingredients to my success:

1) They were simpler times (business was done on a "handshake")
2) I loved what I did (my passion was key)
3) I was naive and unshakable (there was no voice in my head telling me I would fail)

Hardworking and doing what I loved, I had created a very satisfying and self-supporting life. During my sixth year in business, a strong and willful restlessness overtook me. I could not readily identify it because I had never experienced it before. Early one morning while looking out over the 200 acres of my East Texas property, suddenly, as though an angel sat on my shoulder and whispered "Psst, Psst", I knew the next step. With eerily calm excitement, I drove to my office, called the local television and radio stations to schedule advertising, placed a half-page ad in the local newspaper, and rented a 10 foot exterior sign which read: "I Quit - Everything Half Price - Come and Get It!"

Two months later (twenty six years old with a pocket full of cash and my first passport) I was gone. Just like that. My banker and fellow business owners thought I had lost my mind.

Trusting What You Know
(Particularly when it looks insane)

A few months after I left town, Pier 1 Imports opened a store a half-mile from my company's location. Less than a year later, and mired in the recession of 1980, several small businesses went bankrupt. But by that time, I had already meandered through fourteen countries across Southeast Asia and the Orient. At varying ports along the way I received numerous letters, Post-Restante, all asking: "How did you know?!" And of course, the simple truth was ... I didn't. I just knew it had been time to go.

"Sometimes your only available

transportation is a leap of faith"

- Margaret Shepherd

Was it gut-instinct, wanderlust or just a lucky break? I'm not sure really; perhaps all three. I just listened, trusted and leaped. We don't know what's round the next corner. We can't possibly know. As poet and author Diane Ackerman wrote, "It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between." Where there is little change, there is little development. When we surrender our need to control and simply decide to trust, we can find ourselves living astonishing chapters in our lives.

Where am I today? Monetarily, I am currently edge-dwelling. But otherwise, I am strangely at peace and blissfully engaged in writing projects, facilitating classes and developing new programs. In fact, I have never been more creative. Do I sometimes become anxious teetering on this edge? Yes, indeed, I do. But nothing a run at White Rock Lake or coffee with a trusted friend cannot assuage. Besides, when I look back upon all the colorful chapters of my life, there is a bounty of evidence to suggest that everything will be okay. When all is said and done ... it isn't our circumstances that make us happy; it's what we make of them.

Six Tips for Creative Survival

Robyn Lark Wakefield