“You have this beautiful line from the poet Jack Gilbert that I just I think about about once a week. And it is. “Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”

Kate Bowler

Trying to bring forth the work is hard. It is hard to even know what the work is. I love the idea that if we are still we will know the work, but I am not convinced. Simply knowing the work seems like a step toward knowing my self and living in truth and integrity, and that is hard. It is hard to quiet the monkey mind that says I am not good enough, or that’s not possible, or life is not meant to be joyful. It is hard to find time amongst competing demands — that each in their own way tap into what and who we love — which makes choosing and prioritizing our work impossible. It is hard to be vulnerable in the way that sharing parts of ourselves through our work requires us to be. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by the weight of it all — self expectation, self doubt, self distraction.

I am comforted by the idea that there are hidden treasures inside me hoping that I will say yes. I am comforted by the idea that I am, in general, a yes person and drawn to yes people. I am drawn to saying yes in the way that the hot/cold test of life ensures that yes leads the best direction at the exact perfect time.

Maybe not doing work is the hard choice. The denial of self. The perpetual staring out the window of life. The anger that manifests as jealousy and comparison and envy and spite. When we don’t do the work, we miss out on the gift of failure. I hate it when people call failure a gift, but the older I get the truer that statement is. Here’s why. Failure is a sign we are learning. Evidence of curiosity. Not doing the work because we are afraid of failure robs us of a huge opportunity to connect with ourselves and grow. We are stuck, and being stuck is hard.

So I choose to do the work. Scrape my knees, often. Have my heart break a little, often. Seek my edge, often. Remembering to breathe as much as I can. Having clarity around exactly what is my work has taken years. It has required both coming home to myself and creating new selves. It has required burning through 800 tries. (I literally mean burning through in some cases.) It means birthing parts and laying other parts to rest. It means viewing sunrises and seasons. It means ebbs and flows. It means saying yes.

Why Your Creativity Matters: A Conversation Between Kate Bowler and Elizabeth Gilbert on “Everything Happens”