In the Year 2024

The new year is only eleven days old, and I’m already suffering from disorganization. Heavy sigh.

I was supposed to post something here on the first Thursday of the month, which was last week. But I didn’t. I was supposed to write a first draft of my memoir in 2022. But I didn’t. I was supposed to cut out distractions so that I could truly try my best with my memoir in 2023. But I didn’t.

So here I am, still trying to be organized, still trying to write a first draft, and still trying to cut out distractions. In these blog posts, I seem to always share some kind of lesson learned, so what can I share with you today? … I don’t know, I’m actually writing this spontaneously as I go… Gratitude. I’m grateful that I’m here. And I’m grateful that I can still try.

This brings the Star Wars character of Yoda to my mind, who famously said, “Try not! Do or do not. There is no try.” Great. Some people think that Yoda somehow advocates never experimenting or testing new ideas, in that sense of trying. George Lucas wrote that line for Yoda, however, because the sage old guru was addressing young Luke Skywalker’s inability to do one particular thing. Skywalker attempted to do that one thing and failed. Attempted to do it again and failed. Attempted to do it another time and failed.[i] “I’m trying!” Skywalker cried out to Yoda’s persistent directions to do it again, as if that was some kind of accomplishment in itself. But Yoda would not have it. “Try not! Do or do not.”

Grammatically, attempting to do something is, indeed, trying to do something. But it is not doing the something. So maybe I could pat myself on the back (which is physically impossible for me) and tell myself that I’m trying to write my memoir and that, in itself, is an accomplishment. Well… I believe that struggling is a kind of accomplishment. Struggling is often a very good thing. Extremely little would get done in this world if no one struggled. I believe that there wouldn’t be any long-married couples or families intact without struggle. Certainly, there would be no worthwhile art without some kind of struggle. And there wouldn’t be any Saints either. But these are examples of struggling toward doing.

My desire and my goal is not to try writing a memoir. My aim is to write a memoir. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to struggle. And that doesn’t mean that my many attempts aren’t going to result in failures. Each one of those failed attempts may lead to something else — I may find a little poem in one or get a blog post out of another — but they will be failed memoir attempts nonetheless. Not an actual written memoir. I will either get that done or I will not. I don’t know what the end result will be, if my struggles will end in failure or end in success. The fate of the memoir depends on success. The fate of my joy or of my other accomplishments in life, however, can still come about with a memoir failure.

Some people might say that the struggling itself is what matters, the same people who say that life is in the journey not the destination. This sounds poetic and good, but it’s wrong.

I don’t want to struggle for the sake of struggling. That’s stupid. I am willing, however, to struggle for the sake of something good, true, and beautiful. I may fail to do that good, true, and beautiful thing. And that would be a real failure. The struggling itself is not what matters, but how one struggles for that good, true, and beautiful thing does matter. If the way in which I struggle brings me closer to intimate relationship with the ultimately Good, True, and Beautiful, then there is definite worthwhile success in that.

But I still wouldn’t have my life story written out in a manuscript. It would be a memoir fail. A “not do.”

Here’s praying and hoping that I do. Why am I professing this level of commitment? Why do I even want to write a memoir? I used to answer this question by saying, “Because other people want me to.” But that’s not my answer anymore. I want to write a memoir because I believe that God wants me to write a memoir. Yup. I’m on a mission from God. (Insert laughter here.) Seriously, though, we are all created with gifts and talents and missions to fulfill. I believe that God has given me an ability to show others the true worth of a human being, to show others, to show you and the “world,” that every life is worth living and that everybody — every body — is sacred.

So, here I am, writing a memoir. This is the thing that I’m doing. It’s a process (just like Luke Skywalker’s training was a process). But will I get it done?

Stay tuned…

© 2024 Christina Chase

---

Feature Photo by Laura Cleffmann on Unsplash

[i] Star Wars fans will know the sequence of events in the movie better than I do. Corrections welcomed!