|
  |
|
|
Curses or blessings
By Meira Eliot
Curses or blessings? Curses and blessings can come disguised as each other. Like those impish identical twins who like to swap their dates to see how long it will take them to realize. I got to thinking about this week's theme of curses because of a couple of things that have happened to me in my life. All my life I have wanted to write, and I did write here and there, but I kept convincing myself that doing what I really wanted to do was a luxury I couldn't afford. After all, I had a living to earn, a child to support, and so on and so forth. Like so many people I decided to 'make the best of things' (which is exactly what I wasn't doing) and went into teaching, which I hasten to add I do enjoy and find very rewarding. It also gives me school holidays, which is great for being with my son, and for writing....
So, having decided to make my living from teaching I decided to throw myself into the work and develop my skills. Enter, stage left, Mr S., who held all the purse strings for professional development at my school. And who really, I mean REALLY enjoyed his power. I found a one-day workshop in London on Learning to Learn, a major theme at our school at that time. "Great," I thought, "I haven't been on a single training course in all the years since I started working here, so I'm due for some training. I can stay with my friend J. in London, so I don't need to pay for a hotel. All I need is the fee for the workshop, and the budget flight costs. What can possibly go wrong?"
Famous last words! To my amazement and fury (at the time), Mr S. decided to dig his heels in and refuse the funding.
But I wasn't so easily put off. "OK," I said, "I will pay for the flights and the course fee myself, it's not that much, so all I need is two days' leave. How about that?" No, no and no. It seemed like a curse hanging over my working life. I was treading water, making no progress, in a dead end with the cosmos conspiring against me.... I went home, ranted and raved at the injustice of it all as I paced up and down in my living room, went for a walk by the lake, looked across at the mountains, took in the spring apple blossom on the trees lining the path. Something inside me woke up and turned around. Mr S. was not my problem. I was my problem. I was investing all this time and energy trying to develop myself in a career that wasn't what I really wanted to do, and waiting for someone else to give me permission to develop myself, instead of just going ahead and doing what I really wanted to do. I had to take responsibility for what I wanted. I stopped ranting and started writing. I worked through Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way a chapter a week. Within a couple of months I had an idea for a novel. I wrote Moldavite during my school holidays. It took me a couple of years (you can download it from my website www.meiraeliot.com). I moved countries and changed schools to give me more time to write. I started my blog and website. My work on them is a bit sporadic, because I only usually have time to put into them when I am not at school. But I am writing. I am doing what I really want to do.
And all because somebody thwarted me and made my life difficult. Curses and blessings sometimes come disguised as each other. |
The Artist's Way
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Curses or blessings" has been specified by the contributor as:
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0
Details 
This content may be copied and distributed (but not modified), as long as the original author is acknowledged with a link back to the content page.
If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://meiraeliot.qondio.com/
|
 |
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
