How To Fill Your Heart And Soul With Joy

Not too many years ago I had a friend called James who worked for the Beneton Formula One racing team.

One evening James told me over a meal that years before he had joined the French Foreign Legion. One day he just got bored being a shop assistant in a London clothes store. However, James yearned adventure and excitement. So he just closed the store door one last time and took himself off to the south of France.

Years later, James told me, he met an old friend back in his home town in the United Kingdom. And this old friend enquired where James had been all those years. James told him where he had spent all those missing years.

“Oh.” exuded the friend excitedly “I always wanted to do that myself, to run away and join the Foreign Legion.”

“Really!”exclaimed James. “Well there’s nothing stopping you, you know. In fact I’ll tell you how to go about it. However, if I see you around town again in say the next month then I’ll know you’re a liar.”

Harsh? Not really, no. How many times do we hear people say something similar? Somebody once said to Michael Cain the famous actor “I always wanted to be an actor just like you.”

“That’s not true.”said Michael. “You see, there’s nothing stopping you. There are lots of theatrical Rep Companies all around the country and any one of them would be delighted to take you on in some role or another. What you really want is to be rich and famous like me without putting in any effort.”

If you really want something, or to be something, then just get on with it and do it. You live it, you breathe it, you sleep it, you walk it, you eat it and drink it. You think about it to the exclusion of all else.

I always wanted to be a writer and I am a writer, and that is how I went about it. Indeed, that is still the way I go about it. Everything I do is connected to writing.

From the minute I get up at five o’clock in the morning until long past bedtime I do nothing but write. Somebody here on Medium commented that I am quite constant and prolific. For me it is the only way to be.

Yes, I do one or two other things like the odd hour teaching English or Spanish, like recording an album of my own songs or performing a concert of my own compositions. However, it is all in one way or another connected to writing. The one thing you will never ever hear me say is that I always wanted to be a writer.

I have such a passion for it. I live it and I breathe it. Am I rich and famous? No, it was never about that anyway. There are easier ways to make lots of money and become famous.

It’s about how I choose to spend my time doing what I love doing. And what I love doing, like all writers worthy of the title writer, is creating a little bit of magic. Every single day I’m trying to create a little bit of lightning in a bottle or a rainbow in a jar with a thought or a sentence, or if I’m really lucky with an entire article, short story, a poem or a book.

And this is how you have to set about doing whatever it is that you want to do. Apply passion to create a little bit of magic.

One of my all time heroes is Kenny Dalgliesh the amazing Scottish ex Liverpool football player.

Kenny once said “I’m not just looking to score a goal, I’m looking to create a little bit of magic in how I go about scoring a goal.”

You can apply that to just about every human activity. Do it with all of your heart and soul, do it with a passion, do it like your life depends on it, above all, just get on with it and do it.

And never forget, it is not about filling your bank account with money, it’s about filling your heart and soul, your whole life, with joy at creating something of beauty out of nothing.