Try

Just a quickie tonight. The urge to write is strong, but I must sleep soon. I’m flying to Cleveland tomorrow afternoon, and before that I have many Important Tasks to finish at work. Not getting enough rest before flying means the immune system is weakened, and as we all know air travel nowadays primarily involves being sealed in a metal tube with a hundred vectors for god-knows-what sorts of germs and viruses.

The reality is there simply are not enough hours in the day to accommodate “want to” and “need to.” This evening, for example, I wanted to play my guitar for a while, write something serious about Bernard Madoff and greed and fire off a couple of long-overdue emails to friends. However, I needed to do some dishes, pack, shave and, as I mentioned, sleep.

I dream of writing successful books–novels and nonfiction. I dream of running an insurgent campaign for mayor of Chicago, and winning. I dream of becoming a good enough guitar player to be able to spontaneously pick up and play should I find myself in an Amstel Light ad.

I believe now that I’ll get around to all of it. Eventually.

In the meantime, you know that feeling when you’re listening to music and suddenly you hear the words; I mean really hear them? I had that experience recently listening to Suzanna Choffel, a talented singer/songwriter from Austin, Texas.

(Aside: Choffel and her band were playing at The Belmont in Austin the first night I was in town last April for CNU XVI. It’s not often you see a xylophone as part of a band, I thought when I walked in. I listened to a couple of songs and was hooked. I asked the bartender downstairs who was playing. He said the regular Tuesday night band wasn’t there, and he didn’t know who was filling in. As it turned out, nobody working at the Belmont that night could tell us who the band was. It took me until Saturday to learn it was Suzanna Choffel, and it was the sound guy working the Afrofreque show at Lambert’s BBQ who finally told me who I’d seen.)

Anyway, “The Challenge”, one of the songs on Choffel’s album “Shudders & Rings”, contains these lyrics:

I don't want to finish anything I started; that's the problem with me
I just want it to be finished as soon as I begin it; I just want it to be.

Everybody wants to know what my goals are; where I'm going and how far
But goals are for suckers; me I've got dreams.

I heard her sing that and I thought, she gets it. Later, on “Try,” she sings:

What do we have against our dreams
That we don’t try in every way to make them real?
It’s like we’re all on automatic
We don’t want anything new to fear.

Beneath, I am so bold
An overlooked dream I just can’t afford.
I have to look it in the eye … and try.
I have to look it in the eye … try, try … I try … try … try

This world is huge, but it can feel so small
When you put yourself between four walls.
And all I want to do is go, but instead I just stay here.
Comfort always lends a hand to fear.

Goodbye can be so hard to say and hear.
What do we have against ourselves
That we don’t want to take each chance that comes our way.
We just sit here in our fear, thinking someday … someday.

Then I knew she got it. She’s dreaming and at the same time afraid of her dreams. I’m so there. But what’s cool is she’s singing about it on her album. Dream realized, baby. So what’s the message? The way I hear it, we know what’s holding us back and we are not alone. Overcoming inertia requires work. The challenge is out there, for all of us. The first step toward meeting it, is to try. Stop making excuses and succumbing to “shouldn’t” and “can’t.” Shove “need to” in its place once in a while and indulge the creative “want to.” You may lose that hour of sleep you were hoping for. But out of that loss may come some small thing you’re proud of. Another step forward.