Everyday Wisdom

Sometimes a good old truism, even if it's cliché, gets me through the day. These are some of the best I know.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma via Unsplash.com

Rejection is God’s protection

When my landlord declined to renew the lease on the apartment I’d lived in for over 12 years, I was massively upset. Rents in downtown Scranton had skyrocketed; my rent was hundreds of dollars less per month than new leases. I was already straining just to eke out an existence (writing this just helped me realize I have not raised my rates in years and that has to change). How would I be able to afford significantly higher living costs?

But it was more than fear I couldn’t afford to move. I felt personally rejected, like I wasn’t good enough to live in that building. I felt that my landlord, the building in which I lived, the city of Scranton, my life had rejected me.

I took the action that seemed most practical. I applied for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in a senior living building. The waiting list for such an apartment, I was informed, was two to five years.

With six months to move, I visited apartments.com regularly. I told everyone I knew I was looking for an apartment. Options appeared, but none of them felt right. And then in March, when it was just about time to start panicking about not having found a new place to live, I got a call from the apartment building I wanted to live in. A two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment would be available precisely when I needed it.

“I’ll take it!” I could not contain my glee.

“Don’t you want to see it first?” Pamela, the building manager asked.

“Sure. But I’m definitely going to take it.”

I showed up with my checkbook prepared to see a ho-hum institutional-looking unit. Instead, I found a sun-filled, spacious apartment with banks of eastern-exposure windows that checked nine of my 12 wish list conditions for my new home and cost $240 less per month than my tiny loft apartment. When I brought my mom over to see the new place, I finally admitted how scared I had been after being effectively thrown out of my old apartment by my landlord, a guy who owns virtually every rental apartment building in downtown Scranton. My mother, thrilled for my new home, responded, “He did you a favor.”

Rejection is God’s protection.

When I think about the things, relationships, experiences, whatevers that I’ve desperately wanted, I am much more grateful for the times I didn’t get what I wanted. I often don’t know what’s good for me. And because I have a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, once I get something in my head, it can be difficult to let it go, even when I can see the downside. But mostly I can’t see the truth of anything I want too badly.

As a writer, I earned my living from the age of 28 to the age of 58 solely through my writing. I was a one-hit wonder. I had a corporate client who paid a hefty fee for my work and side gigs here and there. I ghostwrote coffee table books. I peddled a few articles to major publications and websites. I edited several books and dozens of websites. But I mostly I did my corporate work, sent the invoice, and collected my pay.

And then that went away. The corporation that was my biggest client started cutting the frequency of the newsletter I produced for it — from 12 issues a year, to six, to four, to two, to zero. When I was finally let go, I was not surprised. But I felt terribly rejected.

It’s hard to see this rejection as protection. I feel sad for the loss of income. But I feel sadder for the loss of feeling like someone who earned her living as a writer. Today, I earn my living doing a hodgepodge of things that are tangentially related to writing. Today, I am writer-adjacent.

I’m telling myself this story because I know I might have stayed in that little loft apartment in downtown Scranton for the rest of my life had I not been forced out of it. And what replaced it is infinitely better. I’m still a five-minute walk to my university job as an instruction librarian (part-time). I’m only a 15-minute walk to downtown, but my neighborhood is beautiful and quiet. JuJu, my dog, loves our new apartment. I love our new apartment. It’s an upgrade of extraordinary good fortune.

All of this makes me wonder: Is it possible my next job will be better than the ones I have now, than the one that ended?

Even before I lost my corporate gig, I had begun volunteering and doing small writing jobs for a local farmed animal sanctuary. I found a calling. I’ve since applied for several full-time writing jobs with other nonprofits that serve animals and/or animal activism. So far, I’ve faced only rejection.

But I really do believe rejection is God’s protection. Maybe I’m better off with my mishmash of work projects. My friends my age are largely retired now. Maybe I’m too old for a serious career-worthy job. Maybe I’m too much of a one-trick pony. Cobbling together a gig here, a part-time job there keeps me nimble. It keeps me from becoming too dependent on one income source. And it certainly keeps me from being bored. I just don’t know what’s best for me right now.

What I do know is that I can take actions and release the results. What will be, will be. If I don’t get what I think I want, I can try to look at that as a blessing in disguise.

Ego = Easing God Out

Another of my favorite truisms is “my ego is not my amigo.”

Even as I write this, I realize feeling rejected is a product of my ego. I lost a job, so I no longer get to tell myself I earn my living solely as a writer. Ego. I lost my apartment, which was embarrassing for me. Ego. My ego makes me feel like crap.

In Latin, the word ego means I. I is my identify. What ever word comes after “I am” defines me. I used to really love saying that I’m a writer. Ego.

My ego can cause me to suffer. It causes me to feel apart from others. I’m not good enough. I’m not successful. I don’t have the material possessions others have. I suck. I’m unworthy. The more I go on with my ego, the more separate I feel from others.

Or, my ego can give me a false boost. It will work to isolate me by attacking me from the opposite direction. I’m realizing any time I judge myself or anyone else, I’m putting the ego in charge. Any time I compare myself to anyone, I’m giving that two-faced ego of mine the reins.

My ego is not my amigo.

When all else fails, follow directions

Years ago, I sat in a hair stylist’s chair in a chichi San Francisco salon. I was telling the stylist something wacky I’d done with a box of store-bought hair color. The hair stylist, who I found intimidating because she was San Francisco-cool and I was comparing my very uncool self to her, said, “Always follow directions.”

I was 38 years old when this occurred and it was revelatory for me. I mean, it’s not that I’d never heard it’s a good idea to follow directions before that day. It’s just that I never thought following directions applied to me.

Cut to this past June. I had a desk I’d bought for my new home office delivered. It weighs 90 pounds and it came in pieces labeled A through U. Some of those letters had multiple numbers. I’m guessing the desk was a total of 60 pieces of various sizes. The instruction manual for putting together the desk was 34 pages long and comprised entirely of diagrams except for one sentence, “Assembly requires two people.”

I tried to hire a handyperson to help me. Scheduling was an issue. Finally, when I’d had the desk for nearly a month and I was no closer to getting it assembled, I decided I’d do it myself.

I opened the box and took out all the pieces. Then I cried. I opened the manual and called customer service and spent an hour or so on the phone assembling the desk with the help of a very impatient man. I got off the phone with him, called back and got a lovely woman. I spent another hour fixing mistakes I’d made the first time. I started to see the desk coming together and my confidence grew. It took a total of six hours over two days, but I put that desk together on my own.

The desk is not basic. It’s fancy. It is has a slide out drawer for my keyboard. It has three drawers that slide, one of which holds files. The desk is large, substantial, and every time I sit at it, I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment, as if I made the desk myself which, after assembling it from 60 pieces of wood and sliders, bolts, screws, nails, and whatnots of all sorts, I sorta did.

But mainly what I did was follow directions.

I felt an inner direction to write this post. I told the judging voice of my ego to please pipe down and wrote despite feeling vulnerable doing so because it felt like the next right thing to do. I hope this is helpful to someone else. It was good for me to remember that rejection is protection, my ego causes me suffering, and following directions leads to better results than not following them.

Do you have favorite sayings that get through difficult times? I’d love to hear them.