In 1981 when I first arrived in Seattle as a recent divorcée and single mom, I was employed in the life insurance industry. When I heard that my company would pay the majority of the tuition for a Dale Carnegie course devoted to winning friends and influencing people, I signed up.  I did so on the assumption that taking the course would make me more successful in the field of insurance sales. Boy, was I wrong!  In actual fact, taking the course was what prompted my LEAVING the insurance industry altogether and set me on the road to living my dream and writing books, but that’s a whole other story.

When I walked into class that first night, I was startled to learn that I had signed on for a course in public speaking. How would that make me better at selling Adjustable Whole Life? I immediately asked the leader how I could go about getting a refund and it turned out I couldn’t. If I took the course, my company would reimburse me for two thirds of the tuition. If I didn’t complete the course, the whole bill was on me. Bottom line? I completed the course.

The classes were built around Dale Carnegie’s writings, and one of the messages I took away from his books is still with me all these years later: MOST OF WHAT WE WORRY ABOUT NEVER HAPPENS!

So here we are in Tucson.  In advance of coming down, I had looked at the weather reports and worried about how the upcoming bout of inclement weather would impact our travel. We flew down yesterday. Within minutes of leaving the ground, we were flying over a solid bank of low hanging clouds—a massive cloud cover that remained unbroken from the time we took off until we were within a hundred miles or so of Phoenix.  Had we been driving, I’m sure we would have encountered difficulties, but we didn’t, so we didn’t. All that worry over nothing.

If you look at last week’s blog, you’ll see that I was agonizing over what we’d find when we got here.  Would the well be working? It was.  Would the TV/Internet system be working? It was.  Would the fridge be working? It was. Would the gas log fireplaces be working? They are. Would the cars on the battery chargers run properly when we turned the keys? They did. Would the gate at the end of the driveway work? It did. In other words, all the things I worried about DID NOT HAPPEN!

And then there are the things that DID happen. The geraniums we planted in the pots on the patio before we left town last fall are thriving and blooming.  The branches on the grapefruit tree outside our bedroom are heavily ladened.  (There is nothing quite as sweet as a still sun-warm Texas Ruby grapefruit!)  The sun is out. I’ll be doing most of my walking outside today and doing it with a grateful heart because life is good!

Years ago, people at a long-departed bookstore gifted me with a copy of Agatha Christie’s autobiography.  In it, she recounted how each time she completed another book, she would find herself beset with self-doubt and would tell her bemused husband, “I shall never write another book.  I have quite forgotten how to do it.” And then, days or weeks later, she would hear a door open and she would glimpse the beginning of her next book.

In the past few weeks, after completing Man Overboard, I’ve suffered some of the same doubts.  Have I quite forgotten how to do it?

But this morning, in the clear light of day and with deep gratitude to the people at the Dale Carnegie Course, I can see that it’s time to stop worrying and get to work.

Writing Proof of Life will be good for J.P. Beaumont, and it’ll be good for J.A. Jance as well.

Stay tuned.