Last week I talked about my sleepless nights and how it turned out to be a sign that I needed to write. And although it’s never fun to run on low sleep, it’s such a beautiful thing to realize that your calling is so strong that it literally won’t let you rest until you fulfill it. Or at least work your best on any given day toward that dream.
That’s when you know it’s real.
The fact that I MUST write is the answer to what Ranier Marie Rilke asks of a budding writer in Letters to a Young Poet when he comes to Rilke for advice with his writing career.
Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all– ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?
Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative… then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.
This passage is what Diana Castle, my acting teacher in LA, would often repeat to us. She would tell us that 95% of her job was just getting people to COMMIT to being an actor. Once that happened, the work took care of itself. But the resistance people displayed in not fully owning their dreams, fully believing in them, was what held most people back.
And every time, it came down to the simple fact of whether or not acting was really in them. How badly a person wanted it.
So she’d pose the above question for us to ponder: must I act? Recognizing Rilke’s advice to a young writer can be easily translated to any person with a dream.
Must I do ______________ (fill in the blank)?
So if you’re experiencing resistance in your life with whatever passion you’re pursuing, if you just don’t seem to be making headway, or if the field itself is driving you bananas and making you miserable, be honest with yourself. And ask: must I do this?
Once you know the answer, it makes life a whole lot easier. Either you free yourself from something that’s really not in you anyway and allow yourself to move on to something that is or, enduring the difficulties of the journey toward that dream become that much easier. Knowing that you must.
So how bout you? What MUST you do with your life? If you’re pursuing your true calling, what was the moment that made you realize this was it for you? If you’ve been resisting your call, but know you must, what’s one action you can take today?
Ingrid Schaffenburg's Blog 
Wonderful advice I must say. Should I answer this question I would say “Yes, this is what I must do. I think about writing every day and it drives me crazy when I can’t!” Grate post, thank you 🙂
You’re so welcome! Keep on writing… since clearly it’s what you MUST do 🙂
Hi Ingrid. This was the perfect message for me today. Very inspirational. Hope to see you soon. Nancy
Likewise Nancy! And thank you 🙂 I’m so glad it helped.
Great post!
This is something I have been thinking a lot about lately. This idea of living your passion has always been a hot topic and is a billion dollar industry. Think about all the money people spend reading books and attending seminars to find out what their passion is and how to live it. While it’s necessary to pursue passions in life, I do think our viral society puts way too much emphasis on living our passion every single day AND get paid to do it. Whoa, that’s a lot of pressure for the human experience!
I say, find your passions and pursue them in the same way you pursue your vices: in moderation. Putting too much emphasis on any one area of life, no matter how positive, means other areas suffer. In a lot of cases I see people that drive themselves crazy trying to find their passion and live it, and the stress of the search makes their human experience narrow and they just live life feeling ungrateful and inadequate. That’s sad to me.
People would fare much better if their passion was to find balance, practice love, and maintain inner peace. That’s so much more attainable than trying to find one elusive thing in life that is supposed to fill your soul.
Thank you for the wonderful comment Julia! I totally agree that balance is first and foremost in living a healthy, happy life.
I agree that TRYING to find your passion or feeling pressured to do so is not a good thing. And can create more stress than anything else. So what I think is most important is just going where you’re called to go. Notice, I said nothing about making money at my writing 😉 It’s merely a message to say, if you feel you must do something, then do it. In whatever capacity you can in your life. Lord knows I have a day job. And I trust that if this passion is ever meant to support me financially, it will. But I choose to live a balanced life and be happy and not feel pressured to make money off my passion. That can be a lot of stress to put on yourself.
Also, I think it’s important through Rilke’s message to stop MAKING yourself do something that’s perhaps already run it’s course. If I remember, correctly, the young poet he mentored ended up deciding writing was not really in him and he walked away. Because lots of people stress out over things that they later realize, weren’t really in them after all. So it’s really about discerning that because I see too many people suffer doing things because they think they need to.
Thanks again for sharing 🙂
Great blog Inge!
Love,
Mom
Thanks Mom 🙂
Ingrid,
This is such a great post. I agree with it 100%. I tend to know that I am on the right path when I can’t not do something. It can be frightening to follow the right path but I believe the reason for that is often purely about the fear of failure. The beauty of the pursuit of the correct though is that we must fail our way to success. To achieve something truly great, our passion can provide that, we must be ready to fail. However, that fear often keeps us back. I imagine that is due to the fact that failing at our passion hurts a million times more than failing at the mundane.
-Renee’
Totally agree! Beautifully said. Love that you said we must fail our way to success. So true. But the difference, I believe, when we’re pursuing what we love is that the failures don’t matter as much. Because we know we MUST. We keep going. Thank you Renee 🙂