“I mentored people to achieve goals I wanted for myself. Susan to be a visual artist, and Benson to write.”
Story: Shadow Artist
I was going to loan Susan the Print and Stamp Lab Book I borrowed from the library to encourage her experimentation with painting. I kept coming up with reasons not to. Why? I realized it was because I wanted to experiment with it myself.
Overfunctioning: I also did this with Benson the Pilot. While I coached him on his book idea about helicopter crashes (for which he was not paying me), I was not developing my novel. It was May and only now was I fleshing out the plot idea I’d had since January.
Once I coached Benson to his “B” grade on his graduate paper (the paid gig) I no longer had “reason” to postpone writing my first novel. And that scared me. As long as I cheered Benson on, I didn’t have to face writing 300 pages of story from my imagination. Encouraging Benson to write a book was an “acceptable” way for me to procrastinate on writing mine.
Epiphany: I mentored people to achieve goals I wanted for myself. Susan to be a visual artist, and Benson to write. I’d feel a thrill of satisfaction, the reward of completion when they took their next steps. But that thrill was short-lasting. It was only a placeholder for the steps I wasn’t taking.
Revolution: Not putting everyone else first creates time to write and produce visual art. In 2009, I began overfunctioning recovery after crashing with a life-threatening depression. At that time I had written and published three books. Overfunctioner’s Revolution marks the publication of book 16.
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