When life shows up at your door, meet it there.

When I discovered Annie Dillard's, The Writing Life (in my thirties) I read it three times in a row, scribbling many passages into my notebook, one of which I taped to the wall of my office. When we moved, I lost the note. This morning, in an online writing class I'm following, here it was again.

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a better place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water."

I'm posting it here because it applies, not only to writing but to living.Spend it all - don't save up your life for some later day when you imagine you'll be more ready, more comfortable, more experienced, less busy, less anxious, less overwhelmed.When life shows up at your door, meet it there - meet it right away.