Some Heroes Leave Out The Best Part of Their Story

Every day thousands upon thousands of blogposts are written and read, many with the intention of inspiring people to be just a little less afraid, a little more creative, and a lot more … something. Figuring out what that something is can be infuriating as we follow the journeys of these “internet personalities” who share their stories and consider the stories themselves to hold all the answers and lessons necessary. That’s something I’m trying to avoid with The Golden Goose Eggs.

Sure, early days there weren’t any really specific instructions. It’s taken me years to figure out this fairy tale living thing, and I wasn’t exactly taking notes during the whole process. So there’s been some trial and error as I take the time to break it down and make sure I’m giving you the very best information/tools/resources/whatever so you can get happily ever out there and live your friggin’ fairy tale.

I want you to live your fairy tale. I want you to be happy. I want you to be you and nobody else, and that’s not such an easy thing.

It’s Hard Enough

It’s hard enough just trying to be yourself. That’s the something you should be more of, by the way — yourself. You should know what you want, you should go after it, and you should make your approach work for you.

None of that is easy to figure out on your own. Even if you have help, every step along the way can go wrong. Especially when all the good advice manages to come after you’ve screwed up.

There’s a little ditty of a story called “Clever Hans,” and it reminds me all too well of my work history (outside of nannying/babysitting). Hans repeatedly goes to visit Grethel, and each time he visits he is gifted a little something which he takes home without having been told beforehand the proper way to transport whatever the thing is. He gets home, his mother tells him what he should have done, and then he enacts that information upon his next gift which — being a wholly different item — requires a different kind of transport.

Before Taking Advice

He should have put the needle in his sleeve instead of the hay-wagon; the knife in his pocket instead of his sleeve; the goat on a leash instead of in his pocket; and, so on. In each job I’ve had, I’ve had to adapt while on the job as responsibilities and duties shift and schedules change, and I adapt until I make a mistake I did not foresee and lose my job and am told what I should have done differently after the job is gone. I take my lesson to a different job and adapt to that job and its own idiosyncrasies until I make a mistake I did not foresee and the cycle repeats.

Nobody likes screwing up or looking foolish or losing their job. Sometimes we’re cornered into it just because “Heh, that’s life.” So, a lot of the time we put the breaks on really living until we have all the information we could possibly need in order to jump in and do it right. Sometimes, we even avoid following simple, actionable advice that doesn’t even take much doing to test out and see if it’s worth more of our time.

When we have any sense that information is missing that could mean the difference between success and failure, The Shivers show up as the Fear Ambassador from Lizard Brain to put the breaks on our ability to just relax and be ourselves. We gorge ourselves on blogposts that are about people who have gotten past The Shivers/Fear/Resistance/Block/whatever, and achieved amazing things. We cling to the bravery of others hoping something/specifics will follow.

Acting On Inspiration

Sometimes the bravery of others is enough to get us to act on whatever actionable steps are provided, even if they aren’t the right thing for us to be doing. It’s great that some people’s bravery is enough to get others moving. What stinks, though, is when the initial excitement of that bravery loses momentum and we don’t know where to go next.

Charles Perrault, one of several authors of French literary fairy tales, wrote “The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots” in which a cat talks a young man into getting him a pair of boots in exchange for a fairy tale life. The cat’s bravery gets the young man to supply the boots, even though he doesn’t exactly know what the cat will do — only that it will get done. In the story, we follow the actions of the cat and assume the young man is waiting around for further instructions.

The cat does provide instructions, and glory. Sometimes our favorite internet personalities provide instructions, but it’s up to us to figure out if it’s enough for us to provide our own glory. I want to show you how to be your own cat, step-by-step.

Make It Easy

In keeping with my wanting to avoid telling tales without any tips or tricks to get you your fairy tale, I have so far created: