I promised you last week that I’d tell you about my relationship to vengeance. We’ll certainly get to that in a moment. First though, a quick introduction to this new blog series: “The 3 Quotes That Changed My Life.”
***
In graduate school, one of our classmates told us how she’d often memorize long poems while walking. I was always a little envious of people who can recall long lines of poetry or text. (To this day, sometimes when I perform, I forget lyrics to a song — even one I’ve written.) Memorizing extensive chunks of language doesn’t come naturally to me.
A few weeks ago though, I was telling someone about my life path, how things have shifted for me through the years. I’d laced my 3 favorite quotes through the conversation, and afterwards I was struck by the fact that I had actually fastened those words to memory.
“Must be important!” I thought to myself.
Important, indeed. If I had to chart a simple arc of my emotional/spiritual/creative evolution over time, I’d just hang some of the experiences of my life on the frame of the these three quotes, and presto! – I think you’d get the Marla Beck storyline rather easily.
That’s my intention, actually. Some of you have been asking me to share more of myself here, and thought it’d be a good time to tell you some stories and speak from the heart.
So, today: happy to introduce to you “3 Quotes That Changed My Life,” part one. Shall we talk vengefulness?
***
My young adulthood had a rough start. As you’ve read in Fire in the Belly, I was shocked by a diagnosis of lymphoma (and, just over a year later, recurrent lymphoma) at 23 and 25. Getting sick and getting well again takes time, and much of my energy in my early and mid-twenties was spent surviving.
Eventually though, I regained my health and energy. Eventually it was time to learn how to thrive!
At the end of my second round of cancer treatments, I celebrated my second (and permanent) remission by buying myself a kelly green jacket. (Now I look back and think, “Kelly green? Really?!” It seemed like a stylish gesture at the time.)
“Green is the color of growth and new life,” I told my friends. It was certainly time for new life.
Looking back, I think that the color of my jacket might have been red instead. My emotional heart was gripped by the pain of years-old anger, disappointment and a certain kind of shame that comes from feeling rejected or failed by someone important.
The circumstances of my story aren’t important. What matters more is the assumption I drew from that experience. I was walking around thinking things should have been different for me. I blamed someone for the fact that things were the way they were. I felt mad.
Then the words of George Herbert crossed my path:
“Living well is the best revenge.” – George Herbert
On hearing these words, on trying on this fresh perspective, I felt simultaneously more clear and free than I ever had before.
Suddenly I had a focused objective: “live well.”
Now I could transmute my rage and negativity in a constructive way, one that supported my health and helped me begin to create something meaningful and deliberate for myself.
Over the years, I’ve paraphrased Herbert’s words like this in my mind: “The best revenge is a life well-lived.” These quotable words, words I’ve shared often with others through the years, redirected my young-adult life. They freed me from trying to rewrite the past and refocused my attention and passion on proactively crafting my own future.
It’s not so easy to admit to you here that my earliest motivations weren’t “spiritual” at all. Nope, my earliest successes — learning to sing and play and perform music, pursuing a creative writing degree, courting travel experiences and adventure — were fueled by a desire to “show someone” what a full, happy, creative and authentic life looks like. My first motivational kick in the pants wasn’t high-minded. It grew out of anger, an anger threaded with an oddly constructive, vengeful impulse.
My first motivational strategy certainly wasn’t perfect. Damned if it didn’t get me started, though. 🙂
with love from your coach,
Marla
