Live Like Your Parents Are Dead

To write like your parents are dead doesn't mean you actually wish them harm. It's just about letting go of your inhibitions. Forgoing embarrassment and plunging ahead. Not censoring yourself. Not worrying about who might read it, but just laying yourself open regardless of what others might think.

To write for yourself and yourself alone.

~ Jason Aaron

We’ll come back to that quote shortly. Until then, I ask you, “Whose life are you living?”

It’s easy to say, “Mine,” from a surface perspective, but are you really?

The attitudes that you have about what’s appropriate behavior, about other people, about the struggle (or ease) of life…all those beliefs and feelings…Where did they come from?

Another way of asking this question is, “Who are you living to impress?”

Or, “Who are you afraid of letting down?”

When we realize that we are living to seek the approval of others, we’re no longer living our lives fully.

Sure, you don’t have to live your life like a jerk, intentionally pissing other people off, but you also don’t have to live it in a misguided attempt to please everyone. That’s a fool’s errand.

Where does such a life lead?

To stress, pain, and powerlessness: The stress of pleasing, the pain of feeling less-than, and the powerless feeling of not being able to effect control.

Three major punches to your self-esteem and confidence.

Is that the life you want to live, feeling overwhelmed, hurt, and weak?

Probably not.

To create the change to living in your strength, you first have to decide in this moment, that nothing outside of you matters.

The power of NO.

We’ll circle back around to relationships shortly. First you have to learn to say NO to everything other than yourself.

And yes, no matter what anyone else has told you, you are allowed to say no. If they don’t like it, and you’re not doing it to be an asshole, fuck ‘em.

Declare this personal space for yourself in body, mind, and spirit.

Sense it. Discover the power of you when you are focused on yourself.

Where do you feel it? What word sums up that sensation? How can you remind yourself of this space?

This is you.

Anything outside of this space has no power over you, unless you allow it.

Allowing: Active or Inactive?

Now that you are aware of your personal space, what will you choose to allow in?

That word, allow, is an important one. It implies conscious awareness and active choice.

Before knowing your space, you may have unconsciously allowed people, events, things to have an effect on you. These tend to be reactionary moments.

Now that you are becoming aware, by choosing what you allow, notice that the relationship to these same items is different. You are in control. You choose what you allow and how you interact with it.

This is where you start living YOUR life, not your parents’ (or anyone else’s).

Live Like Your Parents Are Dead

The quote that opened this article comes from comic writer Jason Aaron’s essay titled, “Write Like Your Parents Are Dead.”

I read it years ago. It’s still very, very relevant to writers…and to all of us when we apply the concepts to living our authentic lives.

Whose life are you living? Or, more accurately, and in alignment with Mr. Aaron’s quote, “Whose life story are you writing?”

My guess is that at this moment, you’re not writing one damned original thought. You’re regurgitating trite, worn-out idea after boring job, after failed relationship, after funny interlude from your friends…over and over and over again.

Your life is a shitty sitcom. And one day, it WILL be cancelled.

How do you want to be remembered, or will you merely be forgotten?

Do you want to be Seinfeld, or will you be Selfie? Do you want to be All in the Family, or will you be Action (as fun as it was)? 

It’s time to start writing a new story

Now that you’re ready to fire the hacks who’ve scripted your life so far, you may want to take a deep breath before you hand out the pink slips.

Look around. Look closely. Look in the mirror.

That hack is you.

(I’ll give you a moment for that harsh reality to set in.)

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OK, let’s go.

Harness that emotion, look deep into the abyss you just discovered in yourself, stop filling that void with meaningless shit and surface relationships.

What fills YOUR soul? What brings YOU joy? What legacy do YOU want to leave on this planet?

STOP STOP STOP!!!

I can hear you falling back as you answer those questions.

“I want to do XYZ, but…,” “I enjoy ABC, but…,” “I want to be known for_____, but…”

NO BUTS!

This is your life. Where did those ‘buts’ come from?

From people outside of you, who judged you and left an impression…and you believed their bullshit.

Why are you allowing the script of your life to be written by miserable people? Why are you living your life based on the lives of people who were born 20 – 30 (or more) years before you? The world is different – the rules they learned (from other miserable people) don’t apply anymore.

Don’t you want a powerful hero’s journey and a happy ending…and while we’re at it, fuck the happy ending. Why wait to experience happiness at the end, LIVE IT NOW!

Start writing your new script now.

Before you do, take a moment to give yourself a moment of grace. Your old self didn’t know it was living someone else’s story. You were just doing the best you could with what you knew.

Now you know more…you have power now. And you know what Stan Lee said about great power…

No Excuses

“But I don’t like writing.” Get over it. Like everything else in life, you’ll get better by doing it, and you’ll feel a lot better about life when you take charge.

(If Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the truly God-awful 1997 movie Batman and Robin (and apologized for it), can create the Oscar-winning script for A Beautiful Mind just three years later, you can learn how to write a new life for yourself.)

“But what if I make a mistake?” Get in line. We all do. Keep moving forward.

“But it’s a blank page, there’s nothing there. I’m scared.” You’re looking at it the wrong way…it’s not that there is nothing there, it’s that it is a space of limitless possibility, literally a blank canvas on which you may create your masterpiece.

Go write your new life story, beholden to no one but yourself. Discover your joy, embrace it, and celebrate it, because you deserve it.

And if anyone tells you that you don’t, tell them to fuck off as you write them out of the scene.

[End Act 1. Act 2 begins next page. (Production notes: New writer hired. New direction coming.)]