Reinvention

In 2002, I left corporate America for the first time, returned in 2004 and walked away with finality in 2012.  Although I enjoyed the many trips I made to Latin America with my friend Dwight, I gained little satisfaction from the corporate world, only money.  I left in 2002 with the desire and commitment to write a book.  Since then, I’ve written and published six novels and am actively working on the seventh.  Though I’ve gained little money from writing books, I find great satisfaction in developing stories, arranging words and researching those things about which I write.

While writing books has been a secret desire since I was a voracious reader as a child, the impetus that turned that desire to action was a series of telephone conversations and emails that started in 1999, and a dinner with my friend Steven Pressfield and my son Brad in LA in January 2002.  Steven Pressfield told me more than once that a person needs to continue to reinvent himself.

I think I’ve done a relatively good job of doing that throughout my life and particularly since Steven Pressfield verbalized it to me nearly 20 years ago.  My ‘off the map’ lifestyle during the summer of 2019 stands as a good example as any.

Personal reinvention can evolve by choice or by circumstances beyond a person’s control.  Regardless, it can bring value to a person’s life.

Yesterday in his Writer’s Almanac musings, Garrison Keillor featured a poem from Eric Dixon’s poem collection Equidistant © Double Yolk Press, 2019.  Mr. Dixon’s poem titled “Reinvention” is spot on and brought back memories of Mr. Pressfield’s advice so many years ago…

Reinvention
by Eric Nixon

At one age
It seems as if life is going
Firmly in a certain direction
And you head that way
Chugging along at full speed
But then
Things change
Sharply
And after a time set adrift
In a place that’s unfamiliar
And completely unknown
From where you thought
From where you planned on being
Stunned, wondering what happened
Some people in this place
Break down completely
Pining away for the life
They feel is due to them
They feel should be theirs
Some people though
Go through a period
Of introspection
And experience
A type of reinvention
Where they pick themselves up
And rebuild their lives
With what they’ve been given
With what they have in-hand
And are surprised to see
They are now in a better place
Than they would have been
Before the life-altering change

Read that again and let it sink in.  Hopefully you will find that you have effectively practiced reinvention during your lifetime and find yourself in a better place than you would have been before you did.

Mitakuye Oyasin