This Driver's Manifesto

http://reflectionsfromthebellcurve.blogspot.com/2011/09/passenger-or-driver.html

Of my earlier posts I've re-read to see what has shifted for me in the years since writing them, the one directly above from September 6, 2011 entitled "Passenger Or Driver?" triggered my most emotional response. When it comes to the vocational choices you've made over your working life, have you more often felt like a passenger or a driver? This is vulnerable territory for me.

In this case, the only thing that's shifted over the ensuing five years is I no longer need to qualify my answer to that question. After my singing voice gave out in 1978, the remaining years of my working life were spent as a passenger. Clearly, I was not an unhappy passenger, but equally clearly, I was not the driver.

How can I be sure? Because since 2010 the steering wheel has never left my hands. Six solid years has shown me what the missing element was in thirty two years as a passenger - creating as though my life depended on it. I now know that creating was never a hobby or something I did to relax; I created while I was a passenger and I create now because I must. My commitment to my creativity is fierce and unyielding. Whenever my life felt out of balance between 1978-2010 it was largely because I was in the passenger's seat. These days I write, I compose, I read all the time to help me write better, I play my guitar, I record my original music, I write some more. And I have never been happier, felt more fully engaged, been more pleasant to be around. I really like being the driver.