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Blogs by Shawn Patrick Cormier
What is your potential? 7/11/2015 2:48:39 AM
I have thought long and hard as to what it is I am good at. Currently, I am a third generation jeweler. I serve the people of my small home town by fixing their beloved pieces of jewelry such as engagement rings, mother’s rings and family heirlooms. I also provide the newest generations of their families with their very own precious pieces of jewelry that invoke fond memories, marking special times in their lives such as weddings, births and yes, even deaths. I can tell you withing 3 seconds just by looking at it, whether the chain you are wearing is solid gold or just plated with gold. I can easily and matter-of-factly determine what gemstone your great grand-mother’s ring is set with, and whether the gem in your wife’s ring is a genuine diamond or a fake. I can tell you if you paid too much for your jewelry, if it’s going to last you three months, a year or a lifetime, and when that family heirloom was made – all with a glance. I’ve been doing what learned jewelers do for over twenty years, and I take my work very seriously. I enjoy carrying the torch that my grandfather ignited 65 years ago. It is an honor and a privilege to do what I do. But I often wonder if I am living up to my potential.
Boy, that sounds pretentious, doesn’t it? How can I even wonder such a thing after gushing about how proud I am to do what I currently do?
Here’s the thing. At heart, I am a writer. Since the age of twelve I have dreamed about making my living as a writer, where I can wake up in the morning and the only thing on my mind will be how can I connect with readers today, and the last thing I think about at night is the next chapter to come. If you are a writer, isn’t that what you want for your life? Isn’t that the Grand Goal? As writers, I think we all feel that whatever we are doing to earn a paycheck at this very moment that is not writing for a living is a cop out, that somehow we should be “living up to our potential” as writers and by now should be published and earning our keep as writers. Isn’t there more than a bit of truth in that?
But alas, let me pop my own bubble. I have spoken to several published authors who make their living as writers first and foremost. And I have heard from more than one (all in fact) that I shouldn’t be too eager to throw away my good day job. Seems that writing for a living adds a type of pressure to your writing that isn’t yet present when you are still trying to “make it”. Seems that most writers who make a living by writing, who have moved from working a day job while writing to writing as a day job for their work, miss the steady (and often larger) income that a day job provides. How many books do you have to sell to make 30 or 40 or 50 thousand dollars a year, every year, as most day-jobbers make? The answer is a lot! Most writers who are living the “dream” are not best selling authors. They are working extremely hard and writing madly to meet deadlines and please publishers and sell enough books and article to keep up with their standard of living (which if they are smart is not extravagant). Many ghost write and line edit and (gulp) work a little part time job on the side. Does that sound like a “dream” to you? To many it sounds like a nightmare. In fact, many of your family members will try to talk you out of being a writer because of these truths. They will say, “The odds of you becoming a published author are minuscule, Shawn. And even if you become a published author, the odds of you becoming a best selling author are even smaller, Shawn. Money is important, Shawn. Give up this pipe dream. Live in the real world, Shawn. Live up to your true potential!” Okay, they won’t use my name when saying these things to you. But you get the gist. The sad truth is that the naysayers are right. Other writers who are living our dream even corroborate their “findings”. So what’s the damn point of all this!! Why even try?
The point is that living up to our potential means living up to “our” potential. This is “our” life, not theirs, not anyone else’s. So if you have that day job, whether it’s flipping burgers, teaching tennis, being a jeweler or even a brain surgeon, and you are making 20, 30, 50 or 200 thousand dollars a year, it’s okay to ask, “Am I living up to my potential?” Don’t let anyone make you feel that it’s not. We do not write to be rich. We write because that is what we feel we were born to do. It is part of “our potential”.
