Make Guilt Work For You

Jewish guilt and Jewish mothers go hand-in-hand. When the voice of self-discipline turns on in my head, it's my mother's voice--Queens-inflected, gum-cracking--and she questions my actions in a pointed way that forces me to re-evaluate whatever decision I'm making. "Adam," says the voice, "are you really going to wear jeans to this very important meeting?" Or: "Adam, how can you not call your father on his birthday? Call him!"

The voice becomes the most vivid when it comes to the subject of "work."

"What are you working on?" And when I answer the voice responds: "You call that work?"

It's very hard for my parents (and my grandparents and all their friends) to wrap their heads around my chosen vocation: writer. "What do you do all day?" "How can you afford your meals?" "What if this doesn't work out?"

The truth is that most of their questions are valid ones. As I told a friend recently, I feel like I'm ice-skating on the edge of an abyss. I'm circling round and round--polishing my first book, working on another--and at any moment it might all come crashing down. And so I press on and I don't really think about how delicate my situation is.

How do I press on?

It's a process of harnessing guilt. I use the guilt of my chosen vocation--the late mornings, the pleasurable lunches--to motivate myself to work my ass off the rest of the day. It usually works like this: wake-up at 10, shower, write e-mail, go eat lunch, arrive at coffee shop, feel guilty, work work work, go home, make dinner, feel guilty for making Diana and Craig do dishes, blog.

One might look at this and think: "How spoiled!" I look at this and think: "How much more fulfilling this is than when I worked at a law firm!"

When I worked at a law firm, I arrived at work at 9 am. I checked e-mail. I drank coffee. I asked my boss for an assignment, he gave it to me. I took my time setting it up and soon it was lunch. We all went to lunch (my fellow interns) and lingered and chatted and came back around 1. Then I checked e-mail again, surfed the web, and gradually finished my assignment so it was done by 5 and I could go home. My time was not spent efficiently, but people still praised me for my efforts. Like most people my own age, I scraped by doing as little as I could do for the maximum reward. In other words: I was ambivalent and safe. I hated it.

Now I'm wildly passionate about what I do. I love the work that I call "work." When I spend my afternoons writing, I couldn't be happier. And when I blog later in the day, I love seeing the immediate results, I love reading your responses. Yet why do I feel so guilty?

Cue the voice. "Because a REAL job is a job you go to. There's no stability in what you do. What if your book's a flop?"

Many might be defeated by these words, but--as the post title implies--I make this guilt work for me. It motivates me to write exuberantly, to read and re-read exhaustively, to revise mercilessly. It makes me stay an extra hour at the coffee shop table with my head in my hands, my iPod on full volume, trying to figure out how to replace the word "perfectly" in chapter five (because I've used it once before). I harness the guilt and I get the work done and I pray that I can keep doing it until I no longer feel guilty, when I realize that this lifestyle is actually a career and that many others (the names stacked on tables at your bookstore) live the same way.

My friends who struggle to get writing done--to finish that novel, to start that screenplay--either suffer from too much guilt or too little guilt. Those with too much guilt feel like they have to work an impressive job with upward mobility to feel good about themselves at the end of the day. They come home exhausted with little energy to write and fall asleep cursing their bosses instead of themselves. Those with too little guilt, casually toss off pages with little fanfare, taking for granted the free time they have and hardly re-reading a word because their first drafts are "good enough." I used to be that way when I was in college, when the short story I was writing for Creative Writing class only mattered as far as how loudly my classmates would laugh at what I'd written. Now it feels like my whole life hangs in the balance.

If I'm successful, then, I owe thanks to God, Moses and my mother for making me feel so guilty. If I sell another book, their guilt will finance my therapy.

Comments

[Patty]

That's really awesome that you've found something that you really enjoy doing and look forward to doing each day. Instead of focusing on the guilt, I think your sense of purpose should give you a greater impetus for doing what you do. Then, you can use the fruits of your success for other things instead of therapy :)

[flutter]

I love this and strive to spend my days doing the same

[kelly]

I feel the same way about guilt and writing. I feel guilty too. That I am not "doing" enough. I am not curing any diseases I am just writing. I am not cleaning the house I am just writing, etc

[Jason Sholar]

On the topic of your old college writing, ever think you might share with us that final play you were writing?

[Gary]

Adam, I attended an Ivy League school. My father wanted me to take a lot of Wharton courses, but I decided to major in Architecture. After I left Penn and worked for an architect for a year, I decided to go into computers. My father had died, but my uncles asked me if I wanted to go to law school so I could clerk for them. So here I was in the burgeoning industry of information technology, and my uncles thought I should be a lawyer. Fast forward fifteen years later, and my uncles were finally convinced that IT was it. While obsessing over the format and typography of mainframe help files, I knew I must attend grad school for graphic design. I've been a designer ever since. It all makes sense, doesn't it?

[jack]

Great information. Thanks