How to Trust that you don’t Need Much and How to go with Precisely Enough

While I accomplished a lot today – booking another agency, a small Voice Over gig, mind-writing and Bikram Yoga – I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough. 

Maybe, then, this should be my new goal: to conquer this fear of lacking, or if not to conquer it, to tame it into a manageable place. Mark Twain said something about courageous not equaling fearless, but rather that courage is continuing to act in spite of what’s treacherous.

So why am I still afraid? I’m continuing to move forward. My actions are being met with success in spite of my doubts. But there’s still this: the uncertainty of freelancing. Essentially, in regards to money, will I make enough?

I read a version of the Theseus myth last night (from Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”). In the story, Theseus, the hero, arrives to Crete as one of a group of men to be sacrificed to the half-bull half-man monster, the Minotaur. No one has ever survived the Minotaur before. Worse, even if one did somehow beat the odds and slay the beast, the monster resides in a maze so dangerous, there’s no getting out. It was built without a map.

Now, as he’s walking down the gangway of the boat, the daughter of the king sees him and falls deeply in love. Knowing that his life is hanging by the thinnest of threads, she summons the man responsible for creating the maze. She begs him for help. Unfortunately, the maze was so complex when the creator finished it, he nearly didn’t get out himself.  Without anything like a compass or markers to offer, he, instead, comes up with an incredibly simple gift: a ball of yarn.

Upon entering the labyrinth, Theseus ties the yarn to the doorway. Unwinding it to the center of the maze, he slays the Minotaur and follows the thread back out to life again.

While he didn’t have much, he had precisely enough.

Maybe it’s time to trust that my own thread will get me into the heart of the cave and out again. Either that, or maybe it’s time to go after my own yarn.

Post Script: Nearly an hour in total. Maybe I should change my guidelines. This seems more manageable. Even when I aim for less editing, I still end up doing more.

Then again, I love the restriction. I never worry that this is going to take my long because  I only set out to sit for 30 minutes, no more.