The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You, Part Four

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Here's what I know: Nothing is ever "meant to be" in the way that here is finally the thing that's going to make you happy forever. When something seems "destined", it's not because God or the universe or whatever has suddenly decided,"Hey, let me drop this reward into your lap so everything can be perfect now." If things seem to align in a way that blows your mind...get ready, because what it really means is that the universe has decided there's a lesson you're finally ready to master. Which isn't a bad thing or a scary thing or even a drag thing...it's the right thing. That lesson is often the exact obstacle you need to learn to leap over so you can go hurtling toward more of the good stuff.
I've had a lot of the above happen in the last three years. Great big huge incidences of "Disaster struck, and I didn't know what I was going to do, and then that very same day, the most amazing thing happened." Last fall, this client was one of those happenings. And I will never not be grateful for that, because it taught me, above all, that the universe has my back. Especially when I make decisions that support my self-worth...that whole "one door closes, another door opens" thing? I've learned that when I slam the door in the face of "Hey, this doesn't feel great and I know I should want better for my life", it immediately triggers the opening of another, bigger door (usually a gold-plated one that opens on clouds parting and angels singing and the cool Will-Ferrell-version of Jesus floating down on a pink puffy cloud, saying something like, "Right on, Amber. I like the choices you're making. Here's a Snickers ice cream bar.").
So I no longer worry about whether or not I'm going to be okay: Because no matter what, I'm always going to be okay. But the lessons that this experience ushered into my life are the real reason why this has turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Here's The Big One (and it's kind of meta in that thing where the student is the master so it feels weird trying to explain it but stay with me here): The only way for me to turn something shitty into the best thing that ever happened to me is by making the best thing that's ever happened to me. There's an instinct there...somehow my mind knows that the only way to get over misery is if I channel all that energy into creating something new. And all the time, that "something" has to do with writing. Usually it's a book - for instance, finishing Holiday Chick was the direct result of a super-shitty break-up - but sometimes, it's even bigger than that. Like last fall: I felt so awful about my break-up with Chris that I somehow knew the only thing that would make me feel better was if I literally made something positive out of all that pain. So I started writing a series about how to get through a break-up. From that, I found that I love writing stuff that reaches out and teaches people what I know...and that I really really love writing stuff that teaches people what I know about making light out of dark.
Which brought me to the next point: I realized that I am so unhappy when I'm not writing that I'm finally ready to do whatever it takes to organize my entire life around just that. And one day, while working it with some new stuff I learned, I realized that if I write and publish a book every two years, I will just barely write and publish all the books I want to write by the time my life expectancy gives out. In essence? There is no time to fuck around here, kids.
So I started giving more thought to the whole "waiting tables looks like a cush job" thing. Which was actually a pretty radical departure for me. I've always felt that, if I was going to work for someone else, then that work had to be cool and ambitious and have a higher meaning for me than just making coffee for hipsters. So I've spend a lot of time and energy helping other people build their brands, and you know what I realized? I don't wanna do it anymore. I want to build my own thing. I want my time to be my time and for that time to not be your time.
So after I fired this client, I took a job waiting tables at a local brewpub three or four nights a week. I still had other client projects in my pocket, so I'll admit that I had the luxury of not really needing to take the serving job. Yet I wanted to see if my hunch was correct in that I would be infinitely more happy doing the thing where I go somewhere to make some cash money and then I come home and I never have to think about it on the in between. When I'm there, I'm there...and when I'm not, I can focus on my own thing without any interference from anyone else.
And you know what? My hunch was correct, and it feels fucking great. I'm working on wrapping up the rest of my client projects this summer and then I'll be phasing those out by replacing them with some projects of my own. It kind of feels like cleaning out a new apartment on moving day - with each room, I'm scrubbing out the stuff that didn't come from me, and replacing it with the shiny, glossy things that do.
But like everything else, it's a process. I'm still kind of in the middle of resorting, and some of it is like Welcome To My Rad New Walk-In Closet Motherfuckers and other stuff is like Why The FUCK Did They Build This Corner Cupboard Like This. Because that's just how life works, right? And I'll be telling you more about some of that stuff later, but for now, I want to end with this:
I know that sometimes it's easy to feel like some of this is just a Jedi Mind Trick of Optimism, or that it's all a bunch of mumbo jumbo (gumbo. dumbo! This game is fun.) designed to help us ignore the cold hard reality of life. Sometimes shitty stuff happens because we do shitty things or because we make shitty mistakes. Yet that's actually when I think this sleight of the mental hand is even more important. Do I feel like I made mistakes when it came to this client? Yep. Could I have done some things differently? You bet. But that's when it comes down to even more of a choice - I can either punish myself by wrapping myself up in regret and recrimination, or I can determine that this is going to propel me forward to both being and living something bigger and better.
And so can you. At every single motherfuckin' turn.
-----------------------------------------------------------Got an example (or maybe even a full-blown tale) where something shitty turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to you? I wanna hear about it! Feel free to share it up in the comments, or, if you'd prefer, you can email me and I'll share your experience on the blog for you (undercover, of course, if you wish).