More than half,\u00a0maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer, is rewriting.\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t say I\u00a0have a talent that\u2019s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of
stamina.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
– – – John Irving<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I was writing my first book, \u201cAwakening\u00a0the Healer Within,\u201d in the late 1980\u2019s, I had never written a book before and I\u00a0didn\u2019t know if I had enough stamina to make it all the way to the end. I\u00a0thought about what it took to keep on going when I traveled with my ballet
company.\u00a0I showed up every day for class and\u00a0rehearsals and several times a year, we went on ten-week one-night-stand bus\u00a0tours to perform across the country. It was brutal. This was an average day:<\/p>\n
We piled onto a bus early in the\u00a0morning with assigned seats according to a hierarchy \u2013 the principle dancers\u00a0and soloists sat at the front and middle of the bus and the corps de ballet sat\u00a0at the back. I was sixteen, a brand new member of the corps de ballet, and my\u00a0seat was positioned over a tire, as I bumped my way along. We stayed at NO star\u00a0hotels and motels, the food we found was barely edible, we performed each\u00a0evening, we crashed in a lumpy bed, got up in the morning, got back on the bus\u00a0and we were on to the next city.<\/p>\n
About three weeks into a tour, I\u00a0thought, \u201cI can\u2019t do this for one more day.\u201d But I boarded the bus and tried to\u00a0sleep as we headed to the next town. I reminded myself that I was not a victim,\u00a0that I had chosen this. I was a cog in a finely tuned wheel and I had a
responsibility toward my choreographers and my fellow dancers. Stopping was not\u00a0an option. Neither was slowing down. I had to keep on going.<\/p>\n
After I hung up my pointe shoes and\u00a0entered the world at large, I found that I could use that same stamina wherever\u00a0and whenever I needed it. Today, it shows up each time I sit down to write or do\u00a0a workout or take a long walk. Depending on the task, I may or may not be\u00a0responsible toward someone else, but I\u2019m always responsible to myself to continue\u00a0on the journey and see it through to the end.<\/p>\n
When I think of staying power, I\u00a0want to differentiate between moving steadily toward a goal and pushing\u00a0yourself so hard, you feel like quitting and you usually do. When my writing\u00a0students are having trouble getting to work, I suggest they schedule writing sessions\u00a0in their calendar like a doctor\u2019s appointment and show up. I guide them to\u00a0avoid unrealistic expectations. If they treat themselves gently and write for\u00a0short periods of time at first, they usually find a way to keep on going and\u00a0expand their sessions. But if they try to go from zero to writing for two hours\u00a0every day, it\u2019ll be a miracle if they do it. They won\u2019t be able to keep on\u00a0going.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, I made a\u00a0commitment to myself to post a blog on Substack every week. I wondered how long\u00a0I would keep it up. It took discipline at first but once I\u2019d built the stamina\u00a0to keep going, it became something that I just did. When I started writing today,\u00a0I saw that it was Blog #367. What? I missed only one week when I was sick and I\u00a0marveled at how I\u2019ve continuously found enough perseverance to keep on doing it.\u00a0What on earth did I still have to say? I don\u2019t know, but I just keep coming up\u00a0with things. It doesn\u2019t always come easy. Sometimes I have two or three false\u00a0starts. Sometimes I think of skipping a week, but I gradually call on my hard
earned stick-to-itiveness to keep trying. As a result, it\u2019s become a soothing\u00a0balm to me. I turn to it for solace. It\u2019s become my meditation, something\u00a0familiar and comforting. A way to reach my fellow travelers and look in on\u00a0myself to see what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
It’s important to remember that\u00a0stamina doesn\u2019t show up because you want it to. You build it slowly over time\u00a0with concentration and repetition. Brick by brick. Stroke by stroke. Olympic\u00a0champion, Michael Phelps, says that he doesn\u2019t necessarily see himself as better\u00a0than anyone else. But he trains harder than anyone else, for 5 to 6 hours a day,\u00a0seven days a week. That\u2019s how he wins. He said, \u201cI\u2019m a finely tuned swimming\u00a0machine, programmed to swim, win gold and repeat. I\u2019ve got the stamina. I can\u00a0close.\u201d<\/p>\n
Endurance. Resilience. Fortitude.\u00a0Perseverance. Staying power. These are all elements of stamina and none of them\u00a0come easy. We have to work for them, step by step, but they improve the quality
of our lives so much, it\u2019s worth the time and effort to make them strong and\u00a0available. They help us avoid curling up into a ball in the middle of the floor\u00a0and melting down.<\/p>\n
During this election year, it takes\u00a0stamina to face each day and it\u2019s no easy process. It hurts, it exhausts, it\u00a0takes discipline and encouragement and compassion toward ourselves. In my case,
it\u2019s about strengthening my resolve to turn away from the nonsense and\u00a0disengage when I need to. I remind myself that I don\u2019t have to stay glued to\u00a0the television to stay connected to the world. I don\u2019t have to watch repetitive\u00a0\u201cbreaking news.\u201d The only thing breaking is me. If the sky is falling, someone\u00a0with a stronger constitution than mine will call and fill me in.<\/p>\n
Whomever we are and whatever we\u2019re\u00a0doing, building stamina challenges us to persevere, to learn the truth about\u00a0our limitations and how to steadily inch our way beyond them. It reminds us\u00a0that when we reach the end of the line, when we think we\u2019ve gone as far as we\u00a0can go, we can do a little bit more. And a little bit more.<\/p>\n
Inspirational poet, Kahlil Gibran\u00a0wrote, \u201cOut of suffering have emerged the strongest souls: the most massive
characters are seared with scars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than half,\u00a0maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer, is rewriting.\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t say I\u00a0have a talent that\u2019s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind ofstamina.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0– – – John Irving \u00a0 When I was writing my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2547,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546\/revisions\/2547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}