The other day I went to a book signing in Berlin. For someone who hopes to make writing a full-time job one day, it was the perfect opportunity to pick the brains of those who have gone before me.
There were about 40 different writers signing their books. I know some of them wrote just one book and werent planning on doing anymore. Others had four, five or more books on their table. So I went up to the people who wrote more than one book and asked if they write full-time. Some of them said they write and homeschool their kids. I asked if they make enough income to live off of.
Oh, you dont, they said. Its just the love of writing.
Then I talked with a man who probably wrote more books than anyone else there. I asked him the same question.
He told me its a very hard, long road and the only reason he can write full-time is because his wife works and shares the load of making an income with him.
I thanked each of them for their time, but inside I felt so defeated. I didnt know what I was going to do with regards to making an income to live off of. Job-wise, writing is the only thing I feel like I have going for me. I started in on God, saying Im going to be poor all my life. Nothing will ever work out for me and so on. I always knew the odds of being a full-time writer were against me, but there is always hope, and every time I asked him what his plans are for me, writing is always the only thing that comes up.
Later that night I picked up my girlfriend as I still felt very defeated and told her what they told me about writing.
She said, I get that they know what they are doing, but its their opinion. Now what is Gods opinion?
I believe my writing is part of Gods purpose for me, but I dont know how it will all play out. God has the last say in all matters. Yes, I did feel defeated coming out of the book signing, but God is too big to leave me where I am right now. I truly believe that God will do the impossible in my life.
Of course no one in their right mind likes to be defeated. We like to win. There would be something very wrong with us if we just loved to lose. However, we cant always be on the winning team. We have to face the fact that in life we will be defeated from time to time. Being defeated isnt the end of the world or the end of a dream although it feels that way sometimes.
Defeat can teach us what we need to do differently in order to get the result we are looking for. It can cause us to take another look at what we are doing and analyze what is working and what is not. We can be working on something right now that we know in our heart is a real winner, but it may seem like there is something holding it back from really getting off the ground. We need to take a step back and rethink what might be holding us back. Nothing we do in life is going to be perfect. That is why we need to constantly be retooling our plans and making adjustments along the way.
Take some time off. Let things set for awhile. Sometimes we are so involved in what we are doing that we fail to see what we are doing wrong. If we keep working on it without taking a break to rethink what we are doing wrong, we will just keep on getting defeated time after time. We also need to be patient with ourselves. The fact of the matter is things take time. We cant always get things done on our schedule. Just walk away and come back to it later.
Just because we feel defeated, doesnt mean we are. In all good things we will have defeat, but we need to keep rethinking and retooling our plans. If we dont give in to defeat, we will come out a winner.
