Tell a New Story HERE
It was (for me) a jaw-dropping moment.
And it was also the perfect final chapter for this month’s theme: Abundant Expectancy (without expectation).
A scene played out that I’d long been envisioning––to be honest, make that dreading––but completely not in the way I expected.
The Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, The National Book Award and the Booker Prize, all announce shortlists with just a few nominees.
My own shortlist of “people I hope to avoid at social gatherings” is even smaller (and perhaps also more difficult to get on.)
Thus, whenever there is such a collision, it’s notable to say the least.
There are things for which it’s hard to truly ever be prepared.
For example, during my stint in an MFA program in screenwriting, a friend remarked that the curriculum lacked the one class they needed most:
How to direct yourself in a cameo
(ideally in your own blockbuster).
Another intense post-graduate program, namely Yoga School, completely changed my life in multiple ways, and yet, even with all the invaluable information, certain things we needed to know were also glaringly omitted.
Like how to make a living as a yoga teacher, for example, or even more specifically, how to teach impossible combos of students, like my first private clients.
They were:
A lovely couple in their 30s; the wife 5’2”, incredibly flexible, very experienced in yoga but not particularly strong; the husband, 6’4”, and a totally inflexible rugby jock who’d never stretched a day in his life.
No two people were ever more physically mismatched, each requiring completely different instruction.
And, to complicate things further, she soon became pregnant, adding yet another layer to the mix.
So much of life is that way, blatantly defying our most reasonable expectations, even demanding of us a continuous Spirit of Reinvention (which is going to be January’s theme, of which I’ll offer a little New Year’s Eve taste today).
Before I continue on with my narrative, I want to mention again that of this writing, there are still 3 places at the extreme Leap of Faith Discount rate left in my new course + individual coaching program.
It’s called Tell A New Story.
You can read the bare bones details HERE.
(Tomorrow, January 1st, the full sales page appears and then the price doubles.)
Note: Tell A New Story will definitely become a more affordable mass-audience course and a book at some point in the future.
Yet if you want to dive into 2024 with some powerful lessons + a weekly 1:1 coaching session with me (and Vlad), now’s the time.
Again, it’s HERE.
Please allow me to violate all the most important rules of storytelling, axioms we’ll be exploring in my new course and in January’s Reinvention Theme.
Namely, I’m going to leave out all the most interesting details, completely omit all juicy dramatic nuggets, even keep the necessary set-up out of the narrative, and instead cut right to the punch line.
(Even on the Hero’s Journey, sometimes Discretion is indeed the Better Part of Valor.)
Practicing what I preach––and knowing that such an encounter might occur––I’d spent the day trying to create a new story, revising the narrative not only of how I’d been wronged, but also trying to open up my expectations of what might now unfold.
And here’s what happened.
Not the actual person who’s the center of this drama but their partner––for discretion’s sake, let’s call them “Enemy Adjacent”–– approached me, even offering a warm but awkward hug.
And then, looking down at Vlad (who loves a party and thus was by my side) they smiled, and asked (innocently enough):
“So who’s this?”
For me, this question was a complete face palm moment, one where I realized all my expectation had been completely wrong.
You see, not knowing who Vlad is means that they haven’t been to my website or seen any of my social media in two+ years.
They certainly haven’t read any of my newsletters.
Most importantly, they haven’t even asked for an update from any of our handful of mutual friends, all of whom would have led with Vlad’s information if they’d ever been asked “How’s Edward doing?”
You see, my expectation was that the loss and regret I was feeling (which has frankly been chasms deep) was mutual.
Granted this was merely the Enemy Adjacent, nonetheless my conclusion remains the same:
While this has been for me a gnawing and unresolved wound, a painful episode on my journey of inner growth, it turns out I’m not even on their radar.
For better or worse, my narrative has no bookend.
Time for a New Story, indeed.
When it comes to defying one’s expectations in poetry, I’m always delighted by the Sufis, although of course it’s tricky to know what’s their take on life versus their translator’s.
I am, however, also endlessly in awe of Philip Larkin’s verse, perhaps even more so.
There’s no one who in a few short lines can take us from the vulgar and profane to the sublime, who can make me laugh, then tear up.
For me, since I’m never quite sure where he’s going but always glad to arrive wherever he’s taking me, his work truly embodies Abundant Expectancy.
Thus, it seems fitting to end the year with one of my favorite poems of his, The Mower.
Yes, it’s about the accidental death of a hedgehog with his lawnmower, but like all his poems there’s a touch of dark humor, and most importantly, he manages to speak about what matters most.
The Mower
By Philip Larkin
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
For me, it’s been an amazing and yet very strange year.
(Perhaps you can relate?)
Particularly with my party encounter, I’m reminded that almost 100 years ago in 1925, T.S. Eliot wrote in The Hollow Men:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Even though I’ve never been more confident and excited about all that’s on the calendar for 2024 (ie, the fullness of Abundant Expectancy), I’m also keenly aware of a quiet sense of loss, always around expectations that were unmet or confounded.
Intellectually, I fully realize that the more I let go, the more open I am to receive…and yet the practice of that eludes mastery.
Instead, it requires lifelong dedication and endless refinement.
So does reinventing our narrative, including recasting various roles––mentors, sidekicks, and even villains––as the plot twists unfold.
I’m envisioning for all of us a year of Abundant Expectancy, knowing that if we fully embrace that energy, we can live our 2024 (and beyond) with Main Character Energy guiding the way.
Indeed, we deserve more than just a cameo in the blockbuster of our own lives.
And, frankly more important than anything else, I want us to always live as Larkin advises, brimming with an awareness that “we should be kind while there is still time.”
Namaste for Now,
