ORIGIN STORY: Finding My Way
Three Sayings from Grandpa plus a “Rule of the Road”
My maternal Grandfather, Raymond O’Neal, had three sayings that guided his life. These sayings have been helpful in my own life. But there has been a fourth that helped unlock the first three. Here’s Grandpa’s sayings plus one.
Grandpa and Grandma O’neal with grandchild
My Grandpa
Grandpa O’Neal was a true Lake Chelan “local". He lived nearly his entire 88 year life on the north shore of Lake Chelan at the top of “Long Jim Hill”. If you’ve been to the Vin du Lac tasting room, you have walked through his childhood home.
Grandpa embodied that generation’s simple and determined living. He grew up on the family farm in the Great Depression. (See my blog post on his childhood.) He married my Grandma before shipping out to serve in the Marines in the Second World War. After the war, he and Grandma raised apples and kids.
Grandpa had a Marine’s will power. He always enjoyed a good beer, but when I was a young boy, Grandpa realized alcohol was no longer serving him nor his family. So, one day, he told us he was no longer drinking. Just like that, he stopped.
Later in life, I would learn that the long beard and hair I sported in my wandering twenties drove him crazy. I don’t imagine many Marines warm up to long hair. But to Grandpa’s credit, he let me find my way and never voiced his critique. It was only after his death, when one of his friends reached out, did I learn the story.
The Three Sayings
During these wandering twenties, I wasn’t sure about much in life. The decade had its share of anxiety and self-condemnation. The poet Rilke talks about “living the questions” in life. I was certainly doing that as I cast about.
In those uncertain days, I found that interviewing elders helped to ground and direct my soul. The process felt like finding trails of bread crumbs that, when followed, piece together my own values and beliefs.
So it was that I interviewed Grandpa.
We sat in his 1970’s Spader Bay living room. I remember the backdrop was dark wood panelling. A table and lamp stood to the side of his chair.
Over several interview sessions, I walked with Grandpa through his entire life. During the last session, as a wrap-up question, I asked what advice he had for future generations.
Grandpa thought a short minute and then replied:
“Well, Guy, I would say this: ‘Work hard, tell the truth, and if you tell someone you are going to do something, by God, you do it, even if it hurts.’”
I nodded and smiled slightly when I heard Grandpa say those words. He effectively had distilled our family creed into twenty-five words. Pioneer farm families are all about hard work, truthfulness and integrity.
Not Measuring Up
I appreciated Grandpa’s example of following this creed in his life. His word was rock solid.
But much of my interior dissonance emanated from my inability to live up to this creed. I equated self-worth with my ability to embody the family creed. What is an Evans if not hard-working and rock solid in their word?
Since graduating college, I had let self-discipline decay. I had started down that loose and alluring path of cheap talk. My character had morphed into many words (I was gifted with words) but little action.
Years later, I realized how far I had slid. And I discovered anew the importance of integrity. But before returning to this cornerstone of my youth, I had to learn a very important lesson in self-compassion.
The Third Rule of the Road
During the time of my interviews with Grandpa, I found a book called The Artist’s Way. It was a fortunate discovery. The book for “recovering creatives” helped restore the trajectory of my life.
The Artist’s Way offers ten “Rules of the Road” to help those stuck in negative mental swamps.
Rule number 1 is to “show up at the page”, a nod to the three pages of long-hand “morning pages” that a recovering creative dashes out first thing upon walking.
Rule number 2 is to “Fill the well by caring for my artist”, a nod to the “Artist’s date” that the book encourages readers to create each week with themselves.
Both of these practices bore much fruit. But it would be Rule of the Road number 3 that would stick with me over the subsequent decades. It reads, “Set small, gentle goals, and meet them.”
Set small, gentle goals, and meet them.
Basic. Simple. Just what I needed.
In those days of wandering, I had an Olympian’s performance expectations but a bar fly’s ability to execute. And my soul was fibrillating in this tension. Grandpa’s words, as sound as they were, provoked debilitating internal critique.
The third Rule of the Road offered a way to ground out this internal tension. It helped me acknowledge I was in no shape for large and hard goals. I had to let go of the Evans creed and live into a new identity.
Set small and gentle goals, and meet them.
I joke with people today when I share this phrase that should they fail to meet a goal, it just means it wasn’t small enough. Shake it off and set a smaller goal the next day!
So it was that in those days, I set very small goals. Get up and get dressed. Take a walk. Call a friend.
Over time the goals increased in size and complexity. Over time I found my way back to strength. Over time I found my way back to the hard work I had known in college.
This return to better health and greater productivity was certainly appreciated. But the real gift was the new identity that had begun to form in those dark days. I wasn’t simply what I did. My worth wasn’t solely rooted in performance.
I had learned that while Grandpa’s three sayings are valuable guides, they are not the North Star. While they offer wisdom, they do not define self-worth.
