When the Pivot Resembles a Divot

I launched this Substack almost three years ago without any clear intentions or expectations beyond (a) a terrifying commitment to post regularly; and (b) a vague idea that I would explore self-doubt and creativity without quite knowing what I meant by that or where the journey would take me.

On my first outing, I wrote this:

Launching this newsletter has been a living, breathing exercise in doubt.

I have literally lost sleep over this. No self-pity party—just the truth.

My core contention is that we cannot banish doubt, but we can accommodate it.

And accommodation can feel uncomfortable because it requires change.

To accommodate is to shift; something has to give.

I’m picturing the slim snake swallowing the fat rat. The snake’s ambition is huge and therefore the meal takes a while to digest.

Doubt asks: Why did I ever think I could pull this off?

Making room for doubt means giving those digestive juices time to work their magic while you keep on keeping on.

The more I dwell on this topic, the more I feel like the girl clutching a hammer until everything looks like a nail. (Can I hold the hammer while also digesting the rat? Hmm.)

Case in point: I was struck by this recent admission from Errol Morris, one of the giants of contemporary documentary filmmaking, as reported by David Marchese in the New York Times.

“I think my whole life has been dominated by feeling like I’m a fraud of some kind… How is my work different than painting by numbers? Is it that different? Thinking you’re a fraud may be similar to thinking that you don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know, really, what I’m doing.”

Long may our doubts bloom.

Today, doubt remains a familiar companion, although she doesn’t intimidate me. Or stop me. But she still has the power to give me pause.

Am I still trying to outrun my doubts by taking on too much?

Do I harbor the silly notion that by packing my calendar and leaping into the unknown over and over I will quell my doubts once and for all?

I know better. Or I should, by now.

It’s time to stop running, catch my breath, and ask some hard questions:

• What am I trying to accomplish?

• Who am I trying to impress or please?

• Would pulling back, even a bit, feel like a psychological death?

• What’s bringing me joy—and what’s not?

• What’s my motivation?

• Where do I want to be (emotionally) a year from now?

• What if I never write another book?

I’m a big believer in pivoting. I’ve done it in the past—and the changes were fruitful. In the last third of life, pivoting is a great way to renew one’s commitment to learning and daring and staying surprised.

Even when a contemplated pivot looks like a divot—a notch in the ground that’s easy to trip over—it’s probably worth it. (Merely thinking about it suggests the necessity.)

I cannot say what my next pivot might look like. I can’t yet imagine a future that doesn’t contain all the things that preoccupy me now, day to day, month after month.

I’ll probably take my time getting there—wherever “there” is.

And that’s fine. I remind myself that I don’t always have to leap before looking…as I did three years ago when I launched this essay outpost.

My new novel TENT CITY, is getting some amazing reviews —and now you can download the companion BOOK CLUB KIT, a rich resource for discussing the book!

“A shiver rumbled inside me from the first page of Tent City to the last page; this haunting story is uncomfortably close to what is happening in us, and all around us in 21st century America. Amy L. Bernstein brilliantly reveals a horrifying world in which the forces of evil, greed, and ambition are tearing away at the fabric of a small town, and all the ordinary people who are desperately trying to live out the American dream. Within this story of a small-town crumbling, looms a larger story revealing what happens when the safety net of economic security falls apart and survival instincts take over. As the characters move through their frightening decline, Bernstein creates an empathetic space for us to peer into our own aversion to the instincts that lie within. Tent City is a thought-provoking, must read for anyone who cares about their own soul and the soul of our country.”

–Jan Erkert, Director of the OpEd Alumni Project at the University of Illinois