Once upon a time, a man walking forlornly down a beach stumbled across an ancient lamp. His foot accidentally kicked the lamp, and out sprung a mighty genie!
"You have freed me!" the genie bellowed. "For that, I shall grant you one wish."
The man gazed wistfully out at the sea for a moment, and then said, "I wish for my life to be special, important, and meaningful."
The genie gave the man an inscrutable look, folded his arms, and blinked. There was a sudden bang and a puff of smoke. "Your wish is granted!" the genie declared.
After a moment, the man felt his body, shook his head, and looked at the genie in confusion. "I don't feel any different!" he protested.
The genie then gave the man a sad smile. "Of course not," he whispered. And then he disappeared.
I saw this story as a comic recently. I wish I could take credit for it's brilliant simplicity. Thanks to whoever it was that created it - wish I had noted the name.
We often feel we're accomplishing nothing. Don't believe it! I just received a DM from a fellow LinkedInnie (is that a good term?) that included the following quote (truncated for brevity and anonymity):
"You should receive an email with a link to a kindle copy of my first novel... I've followed you for a while
on LinkedIn... You were one of the examples which encouraged me to start submitting to publishers."
This writer had done short stories for a while, but only as a hobby. He began submitting full books only a few years ago - and now has signed his third book deal - and he's attributing part of his motivation to my example!
I don't know what I've done that he found so encouraging. I'm certainly not one of those "you can do it!" cheerleader folks. If anything, I tend to to note, and ponder, the difficulties we writers stru
ggle with, and I rarely have a simple solution to offer. Hardly the world's greatest motivator, I know.
But a person I know only slightly saw something I did, took heart from it, and make a huge step forward in his personal and professional life. (AND he sent me just the loveliest message to tell me, too!)
You may think it'll sink without a ripple, but don't kid yourself. You never know how your stone will skip across the sea.
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Yonah Klein is the author of numerous published comics, children's books, short stories, audio productions, and the novel Power Plays. His second novel, based on the wildly successful serial Face2Face, is due out shortly.
That's a wonderful tale. People's lives are special, important and meaningful. It is up to others to see it. How do we recognize this? In today's world, we spend time writing resumes and cv's that speak of our accomplishments. We create websites that do the same. Although we learn in elementary school that we should be modest, we learn later on in life that we should boast, market ourselves, even though many of us feel uncomfortable doing so.
For artists (authors, musicians, painters, sculptors, performers, etc.), let ArtsKeeper be one of the places that enables you to be recognized (as an artist), that gives opportunity, that will promote your art. ArtsKeeper was founded on the principle that people who create…
Excellent piece, directing us to both be acceptant of the facts that life is never all bad... and the importance of self belief, creativity, fortitude and perseverence.
Inspirational. Thank you for sharing it.