2.1 - Imagine That (Is That Perfect?)

Did you ever imagine your perfect life?

What were the images of that life? What were you doing? Where were you? Who was with you?

Recall the images and make a list of them.

Then, choose one or two and tell the story of each in a few paragraphs.

What was perfect about these images?

Did you try to achieve that perfect life? Did you succeed or fail? How?

How did you feel about it all?

 

Possible images of your perfect life

• Having many good friends

• Marrying and having children

• Having children who are successful and well-educated

• Owning a house and living in a friendly neighborhood

• Owning a second home at the beach

• Writing best-selling novels

• Having some of my novels become movies

• Making videos and films

 

Examples

• Getting a teaching position

• Being well-liked by students

 

(Read Getting a Teaching Position and Writing Best-Selling Novels below)

 

​Getting a Teaching Position

I chose education as my major because I had a great time in high school. When I was planning my college courses, I realized that I felt most comfortable in a school setting. As it turned out, I became a teacher, had varied experiences in different teaching settings, and enjoyed a thirty-five-year career as an educator.

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The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was myself. I was very shy about standing in front of a group and talking, so obviously teaching would be a challenge. My first experiences with teaching came when I had to teach a class of my college peers as part of an education methods course. Though we were all in it together and I should have realized that I was facing a friendly audience, I wasn’t that trusting. Nerves and anxiety bothered me in the days and nights leading up to my presentation. My biggest fear was not being able to fill the twenty-minutes of time I was allotted. So, I over-prepared. While that isn’t always bad, in this case it was because I weighted the front of the lesson with too much which left me with no time to wrap it up. On the plus side, thinking I had plenty and would not be left stuttering for something to say, I wasn’t nervous once I started.

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I survived that instance and many others like it. Eventually I became a teacher and felt comfortable in front of a group of teens as well as their parents at Back-to-School Nights and my colleagues in professional development presentations.

 

Writing Best-Selling Novels

Writing a best-selling novel has been my dream since I graduated from college. By profession I was an English teacher. But I thought I could write on the side and in the summer. So I began, and little by little I wrote stories and chapters for a novel. I enjoyed creating characters, situations, and conflicts and pounding away on my portable typewriter before the age of computers and word processing. Often, I would base my fiction on the real people and events I lived with every day. It was a release.

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Unfortunately, real life intruded. I had bills to pay, so I picked up part-time work. My writing time was cut. Then I got married and had children.

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Forty years from the time I first sat down and typed my opening lines, I finished the story. It was very different now. In forty years, I had experiences and met people and was exposed to a changing world and it all changed my story. But I wrote it.

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Writing this time was therapy. I had just retired from teaching, the last two years of which had been hell with a crazy principal and confusing relationships with colleagues and friends. In five months, I completed the first draft. In the next ten months, with a month break, I revised and revised and revised. Through it all, I relived those last two years and by writing it all down I also let it all out. Finally, my story was finished and ready for publishing.

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I decided to go the self-publishing route after finding no other takers. So for $178 I could publish it as an e-book. I worked to get it formatted and complete the final steps. I pressed SUBMIT. And I started to have regrets.

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I feared that in my writing therapy I might have been unkind and hurtful to that principal and more importantly to colleagues and friends. I had buyer’s remorse, or should it be seller’s remorse. I didn’t want to cause any pain or embarrassment, and I also didn’t want to get sued. So, I pulled it. It cost me $99, the amount the self-publishing company charged for the e-book setup. I was refunded $78, the amount they charged for distribution. But it was well worth it. As my husband said, “You have to go with your gut.” And though I had some misgivings, my gut said publishing was not a good idea.

So, I still have the finished book. Maybe someday.