Welcome to The Wildroot Parables weekly discussions! This is where we can come together as a community and have real talk with one another: open, honest, gracious, and curious.
This is YOUR space to discuss with each other, not just engage with me! Because of this, SAFE SHARING is my highest priority. If you are not engaging safely and with grace with others, you will have to leave. Period.
Today, let’s discuss: have you had any false starts already, this year? If you feel comfortable sharing them, please do! If not, that’s completely fine. Instead, I invite you to tell us some ways that you’re seeking to move through the setback. Are you changing your strategy, doubling down, or moving on to something else? What does resilience look like for you, in a season of false starts?
After several months of what felt like nonstop chaos, things started to feel calm in the new year. A fresh, calm start. Only to have more chaos. Yet. It wasn’t quite the chaos I imagined, things actually turned out just fine. I’m working on training my nervous system it’s okay to trust the GOOD... it’s okay to trust Spring is coming. I love what you’ve written this week because it reminds me to just keep going, taking it day by day. Spring *will* come, in Nature and life, I have no doubt.
My false start/setback is that I haven't been able to get any freelance writing jobs. Counting last year + this year, I have sent out emails or called people over 500 times with no responses. I joined Upwork and I've only gotten one job for $20. I did get one other brief job but when you only make less than 1/3 of your rent, it's not very good. I write so well and can help so many people, I just don't understand it. I read that this was so easy and I have found people who have received clients after only 3 emails. And they are making big bucks!
I'm starting to think God doesn't want me to write for a living. I do have a job in the restaurant business where I'm flourishing but being a writer would allow me to survive. My salary right now is not going to cut it. I wish I knew why no one would hire me to write for them. I could do so much for businesses. I know the ins and outs and have worked in the corporate world.
So I would call this a major false start/setback.
I love writing all my stories on Substack, so I'll never surrender. Writing is my life and I won't quit just because I can't find any paying customers.
As you've said numerous times S.E., don't ever give up!
My Substack is turning out to be one of those false starts. I realize I need to trust God and take the next step. It is harder than it sounds. Silencing my inner critic is difficult. As I write this, it seems like a pile of excuses now.
I admire the simplicity and beauty of your work. God bless you!
In my father’s last days, as Lewy Body’s Dementia stole away his once sharp mind, I went down to St. Paul to visit him. Most days, he would lie on the couch, perhaps holding a conversation with "someone” or even directing a “meeting.” But some days he was "himself” again. When he was lucid, I could ask for advice if I was contemplating a big decision in my life, like buying a house or taking a job. When I was deciding between two jobs after getting my Master’s, he advised me that taking one of the jobs would put me in competition with family members of the owner and that could be a problem. When I was looking at buying my house, he said to be sure and hire a lawyer to avoid legal issues that could arise. He had had both experiences and was personally aware of the pitfalls.
After a “false start” in a nursing home, my mother insisted that he be brought back home and family members helped out.
While I was there, he spent most of his time in that delusional world. I had to get back to my job and “home,” on a Monday. The hsoptial that he was in at that time was connected to their condo with a walkway, but I set out on the darkened street. As I walked I debated continuing, when he wouldn’t recognize me or even remember I was there. But, I had gone through the same situation with my Gramma and decided that she was there for me when I was a baby, changing diapers and providing comfort by holding me.
Luckily, he was lucid. I’d ask him questions about the early days of his employment as a District Sales Manager, Like “What was the deal on ‘quota’s’ back then?”
His response came promptly and clearly, “Hay balers were new and they couldn’t manufacture them fast enough to satisfy the demand, so my salesmen had to decide how many each implement dealer would get in a year. I thought the company favored some district, but salesmen work on commission, so that wasn’t fair.”
We talked like that for a while, but I knew it would tire him and he could slip back at any time. Knowing this could be our last conversation, I had something I wanted to say to him. We hadn’t always gotten along as I resented his attempts to control my behavior and he was frustrated at my inability to see where my life was headed, if I did not follow his advice.
That night, as I sat in a chair, bathed in the only source of light, an open door to the hallway, dimly lighting his face, I said, “You know, you’ve been a pretty good father.” He replied, “And you have been a pretty good son, after a few false starts. “
As it turned out, my repeated “false starts,” known these days as a “failure to launch,” had shaped my life for the career that I was born for. After 25 years on a Drunkard’s Walk,” (Anyone can have an off quarter century), I went to treatment and wound up returning to college for a degree in Alcohol/Drug Abuse Studies, making the Dean’s List (for a perfect GPA) and then into the perfect job in anideal setting, with the usual alcoholic's trail of jobs that had turned into “false starts,” but provided me with experiencse that helped me relate to my varied clients.
I was alternating my yoga routine while writing this reply to your “False Start” post, while a Mark Knopfler Concert played in the background. Around 50:00 minutes he went into a soliloquy about his early life, full of many “false starts,” One of those frequent “musical coincidences” that my life so frequently serves up, but always making me grin. As the video returned to the music, he introduced a song, “That I wrote about that experience…” He made an impulsive decision on Christmas Eve to quit the band he was playing with and hitchhike 500 miles to his homeland. There was a blizzard overnight and, predictably, very few travelers on Christmas Day, but he survived and met interesting people along the way.
When I was attempting to quit drinking, “on my own” I spent seven years in a prolonged “false start,” that at least allowed me to spend a lot of time with my father’s family in very rural South Dakota, where I had spent many summers and also got me 500 miles away from Des Moines, where the meth epidemic was destroying the lives of many of the people I had partied with.
It was from there that I “launched” myself into treatment and a brand new life, so you never know.
Maybe the snow blanketed your buds from a hard frost and allowed them to thrive? Or they were replaced by later eruptions of life as Mother Nature cannily spread out the emergence of buds, to allow for the early head start in a warm spring, or the later arrivals when the weather was more favorable.
You may have wondered about my tendency to reappear and disappear from your Stack, but I have continued to read, write a (often unsent) reply and think about your ideas, but my health issues and a huge blizzard pinned me to my home until recently ,when hints of spring allowed me to resume walking the lethargy out of me.
Looks like I drifted into replying to today’s “setbacks” etc. Post. I need to prune this, but no time and I know me. I’ll soon be leaving this in the False Start Swamp.
Thanks for all you do to encourage us on Writer Hours.
I was feeling like there was a further connection to your “Setbacks” post here, but I couldn’t quite come up with it.
Aha! Michael Jr. Tedx University of Nevada! I intended to share that with the community, but I don’t think that I got around to doing so. Being 80 comes with a few setbacks of its own.
Anyway, by explaining how humor works, he explained something about life:
Setbacks to Setups 'I do observational comedy. I’m an observer. " (And thi sties into my Uncle Fritz’ bit that I shared on Writers Hours, “You see, but you don’t observe,” that a few folks (Ramona and Mehda? “liked"). He told a joke about a football player who lost his vision in one eye, when he was hit by a flag. He sued the league for $4 million and won. You’ll have to watch the video to get the punchline. And...it ties into my own life.
I have been thinking about the setback I got from my stroke, but I’m going to save my personal “punchline” for Merlin’s Newsletter.
After several months of what felt like nonstop chaos, things started to feel calm in the new year. A fresh, calm start. Only to have more chaos. Yet. It wasn’t quite the chaos I imagined, things actually turned out just fine. I’m working on training my nervous system it’s okay to trust the GOOD... it’s okay to trust Spring is coming. I love what you’ve written this week because it reminds me to just keep going, taking it day by day. Spring *will* come, in Nature and life, I have no doubt.
My false start/setback is that I haven't been able to get any freelance writing jobs. Counting last year + this year, I have sent out emails or called people over 500 times with no responses. I joined Upwork and I've only gotten one job for $20. I did get one other brief job but when you only make less than 1/3 of your rent, it's not very good. I write so well and can help so many people, I just don't understand it. I read that this was so easy and I have found people who have received clients after only 3 emails. And they are making big bucks!
I'm starting to think God doesn't want me to write for a living. I do have a job in the restaurant business where I'm flourishing but being a writer would allow me to survive. My salary right now is not going to cut it. I wish I knew why no one would hire me to write for them. I could do so much for businesses. I know the ins and outs and have worked in the corporate world.
So I would call this a major false start/setback.
I love writing all my stories on Substack, so I'll never surrender. Writing is my life and I won't quit just because I can't find any paying customers.
As you've said numerous times S.E., don't ever give up!
My Substack is turning out to be one of those false starts. I realize I need to trust God and take the next step. It is harder than it sounds. Silencing my inner critic is difficult. As I write this, it seems like a pile of excuses now.
I admire the simplicity and beauty of your work. God bless you!
In my father’s last days, as Lewy Body’s Dementia stole away his once sharp mind, I went down to St. Paul to visit him. Most days, he would lie on the couch, perhaps holding a conversation with "someone” or even directing a “meeting.” But some days he was "himself” again. When he was lucid, I could ask for advice if I was contemplating a big decision in my life, like buying a house or taking a job. When I was deciding between two jobs after getting my Master’s, he advised me that taking one of the jobs would put me in competition with family members of the owner and that could be a problem. When I was looking at buying my house, he said to be sure and hire a lawyer to avoid legal issues that could arise. He had had both experiences and was personally aware of the pitfalls.
After a “false start” in a nursing home, my mother insisted that he be brought back home and family members helped out.
While I was there, he spent most of his time in that delusional world. I had to get back to my job and “home,” on a Monday. The hsoptial that he was in at that time was connected to their condo with a walkway, but I set out on the darkened street. As I walked I debated continuing, when he wouldn’t recognize me or even remember I was there. But, I had gone through the same situation with my Gramma and decided that she was there for me when I was a baby, changing diapers and providing comfort by holding me.
Luckily, he was lucid. I’d ask him questions about the early days of his employment as a District Sales Manager, Like “What was the deal on ‘quota’s’ back then?”
His response came promptly and clearly, “Hay balers were new and they couldn’t manufacture them fast enough to satisfy the demand, so my salesmen had to decide how many each implement dealer would get in a year. I thought the company favored some district, but salesmen work on commission, so that wasn’t fair.”
We talked like that for a while, but I knew it would tire him and he could slip back at any time. Knowing this could be our last conversation, I had something I wanted to say to him. We hadn’t always gotten along as I resented his attempts to control my behavior and he was frustrated at my inability to see where my life was headed, if I did not follow his advice.
That night, as I sat in a chair, bathed in the only source of light, an open door to the hallway, dimly lighting his face, I said, “You know, you’ve been a pretty good father.” He replied, “And you have been a pretty good son, after a few false starts. “
As it turned out, my repeated “false starts,” known these days as a “failure to launch,” had shaped my life for the career that I was born for. After 25 years on a Drunkard’s Walk,” (Anyone can have an off quarter century), I went to treatment and wound up returning to college for a degree in Alcohol/Drug Abuse Studies, making the Dean’s List (for a perfect GPA) and then into the perfect job in anideal setting, with the usual alcoholic's trail of jobs that had turned into “false starts,” but provided me with experiencse that helped me relate to my varied clients.
I was alternating my yoga routine while writing this reply to your “False Start” post, while a Mark Knopfler Concert played in the background. Around 50:00 minutes he went into a soliloquy about his early life, full of many “false starts,” One of those frequent “musical coincidences” that my life so frequently serves up, but always making me grin. As the video returned to the music, he introduced a song, “That I wrote about that experience…” He made an impulsive decision on Christmas Eve to quit the band he was playing with and hitchhike 500 miles to his homeland. There was a blizzard overnight and, predictably, very few travelers on Christmas Day, but he survived and met interesting people along the way.
When I was attempting to quit drinking, “on my own” I spent seven years in a prolonged “false start,” that at least allowed me to spend a lot of time with my father’s family in very rural South Dakota, where I had spent many summers and also got me 500 miles away from Des Moines, where the meth epidemic was destroying the lives of many of the people I had partied with.
It was from there that I “launched” myself into treatment and a brand new life, so you never know.
Maybe the snow blanketed your buds from a hard frost and allowed them to thrive? Or they were replaced by later eruptions of life as Mother Nature cannily spread out the emergence of buds, to allow for the early head start in a warm spring, or the later arrivals when the weather was more favorable.
You may have wondered about my tendency to reappear and disappear from your Stack, but I have continued to read, write a (often unsent) reply and think about your ideas, but my health issues and a huge blizzard pinned me to my home until recently ,when hints of spring allowed me to resume walking the lethargy out of me.
Looks like I drifted into replying to today’s “setbacks” etc. Post. I need to prune this, but no time and I know me. I’ll soon be leaving this in the False Start Swamp.
Thanks for all you do to encourage us on Writer Hours.
I was feeling like there was a further connection to your “Setbacks” post here, but I couldn’t quite come up with it.
Aha! Michael Jr. Tedx University of Nevada! I intended to share that with the community, but I don’t think that I got around to doing so. Being 80 comes with a few setbacks of its own.
Anyway, by explaining how humor works, he explained something about life:
Setbacks to Setups 'I do observational comedy. I’m an observer. " (And thi sties into my Uncle Fritz’ bit that I shared on Writers Hours, “You see, but you don’t observe,” that a few folks (Ramona and Mehda? “liked"). He told a joke about a football player who lost his vision in one eye, when he was hit by a flag. He sued the league for $4 million and won. You’ll have to watch the video to get the punchline. And...it ties into my own life.
I have been thinking about the setback I got from my stroke, but I’m going to save my personal “punchline” for Merlin’s Newsletter.