Doris Lessing died earlier this week. I can’t offer a proper obituary. I have never read her work. The Golden Notebook is on my list of things to read. And still, I am grateful to her for the gift of this quote, which has been following me around all week:
“Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
Her words are finding me at every turn. I find them in my tweets, my blogs and now, endlessly, in my own head. It is that song playing softly in the background, which I cannot get out of my head. It is that familiar, unnamed face I see in the hallways and on the elevators as I go about my day. It is the message inside a hundred thousand fortune cookies. It is, I think, the voice of the universe telling me something subtle and simple and true.
There is something you are meant to do. Do that thing right now. Keep doing that thing until you’ve got it figured out. It won’t get easier. Your life is never going to be simpler or more ideal. You will never feel more inspired. You have everything you need to get started. Anything else you will find along the way.
Ubiquitous. Quotidian. 
Reblogged this on writermummy and commented:
I absolutely love this!
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Reblogged this on where i keep my stuff.
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I fully agree with Lessing’s quote, and I also like your elaboration on it. Especially your remark that life is never going to be ideal. It can be easy to think that, once we’ve accomplished a big goal of ours (like publishing a book), we’ll be living in some fairyland of success where suddenly everything is easy and the light always golden. But the best indication of what the future will be like is the present. Even once you have “success,” your days are going to be a lot like they are now. Your emotions are going to be a lot like they are now. (At least that’s how it’s been for me at each big life change.) So, if you want your future to be different, I’d say Lessing’s advice is right on: start by making TODAY different.
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Exactly so, Sharon. I also really like Stephen King’s take on this theme: “Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
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