What is the third thing that drives your life?

It's often the deeper motivations beneath your immediate response.

At age ten, my favorite pasttime was learning to draw animals. Here’s a beach scene I created, and my mom kept it. 1991.

For the audio version of this essay, please click on the voice clip below:

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Recently, I remembered a point in my girlhood when I first knew I wanted to “grow up and become an artist.” This, for me, meant author/illustrator. I was ten years old. A close friend of mine, Kristine, and I penned a cozy mystery called The House on Haunted Hill, which we presented at our local Young Authors Conference. This sparked my creative longing to continue bringing stories into the world.

Shortly after our read-aloud, I told Kristine, “Let’s buy a horse ranch and be writers together someday!” She chuckled and agreed, but I know now it was my dream, not hers.

After school most days, I would hole up in my bedroom and pull out my colored pencils, sketchbook, and lined notebook paper. The stories came to me: The Thanksgiving Surprise, about wild animals coming together to share a meal instead of fighting over food; Too Many Siblings, Too Many Pets—my series book about a girl with (I think) ten siblings who lived on a farm with all sorts of livestock.

When required to create a book report cover for school, I took the project seriously. It was my chance to do something magical, whimsical, or soft—whatever tone I wanted to represent the mood I took away from the story. Many of my classmates believed I was soliciting attention or wanted to receive an A+, but my main goal was to create the best representation of a story. My goal was to create.

I didn’t invest this same level of energy or time to other projects, like studying for math tests or science projects. But if any subject required a cover, a report, or both, I took it upon myself to make it into a work of art.

In order to showcase an example of this for a recent essay, I pulled out old scrap books my mom had given me with the gems she’d saved from my childhood. What I didn’t expect was to stumble upon a world of imagination that I’d locked up for decades. As I turned pages, I noticed a half-typed, half-handwritten report that began as an assignment to demonstrate what we’d learned about the Boston Tea Party in our social studies class.

Here’s the front page of my mock newspaper, a form of reporting I chose instead of a boring essay. I think I made this in fifth grade, which would have been 1992.

My report was styled as an old newspaper, entitled The Boston Times: December 1773, monthly edition. (I have no idea where I came up with this concept.) But here’s my point: While each article reflected information I’d learned—like “Radicals Dump Tea into Boston Harbor” or “Ask Mr. Willow” (advice column) or “Balling the Jack”—I’d forgotten about this one: “The Ambition of a Writer”.

Here’s what it says:

THE AMBITION OF A WRITER
By Jeannie Eiserle of The Boston Times

Christina Campbell, a young and intelligent beauty, has been writing fictional fantasy books since her childhood. Now 22, she tells us of how her dream has become a successful career.

“I didn’t see it as a career until about four years ago,” Campbell recalls. “As a young child, I always enjoyed reciting and writing stories, but my father kept saying to me that I was wasting my time with such nonsense.”

At the age of 9, Christina’s family lost a large sum of money. Her family was forced to move out of the Boston area and into a small town far away. Many of her stories were lost during that period of time and still have not been recovered.

“She was devastated,” says Campbell’s mother. “All of her hopes and dreams had been lost forever.”

Perhaps Campbell decided to pursue writing once more, instead of giving up. She attended college, and she wrote short stories and poems in her spare time. “I couldn’t give up. I knew something out there was waiting for me.”

Finally, at the age of 18, a friend who had read many of Campbell’s stories encouraged her to contact a publisher. She even offered to pay for the expenses. Now, currently residing in Boston, Campbell continues her career in writing. “I owe it all to Abigail. She was a great friend and told me never to give up hope, which I never did. Look where I am now. It proves that dreams do come true!”

Let’s overlook the fact that my style was undeveloped; I didn’t take into consideration the way dialogue would have been in 1773; and the cornball ending makes me roll my eyes. The value, to me, is twofold. One, I used my creativity to form a made-up article that tied in to what we were learning in school, which was beyond the facts and figures we memorized for our exams. And two, the story was about me, and I didn’t know it back then.

Here’s the second page of the mock newspaper, in which you can see my article entitled, “The Ambition of a Writer.”

That’s the “third thing” I believe Natalie Goldberg wrote about in her book, Old Friend From Far Away. She offers this wisdom to memoirists:

It’s probably better as writers to know what we are up to but always—if the book is good—a third thing is revealed to the reader, often unknown to the writer. Isn’t that the way life is, too?¹

Nowadays, motivational speakers pose this as, “What’s your why?” The intent, I think, is to get us thinking beyond the superficial, to dig deeper into considering what we value. If we ask ourselves “why” we do what we do, whatever it is, and our reply is along the lines of, “It’s my duty/responsibility/obligation” or “Because I have to,” then we’re missing our deeper motivation.

The why, or the third thing, is usually hidden beneath the surfaces. It settles in what we desire, or hope for, in those sparkly breadcrumbs that inspire us or ignite a sense of wonder and delight. We tell ourselves we can’t do what Christina Campbell in my ill-written article did: follow our dreams. It’s not possible, right? Dreams don’t really come true, as we were led to believe when we were children.

Think of it this way: When you go through the motions of your daily life, what keeps you coming back to do more? If I’m having a bad day, I grouse inside my head about the never-ending cycle of laundry and dishes and meals that no one even notices or appreciates. I do it all, because it must be done and no one else is going to do it. It’s my responsibility. This is the reflexive answer I would offer if someone asked me, “What’s your why?”

If I’m in a better frame of mind, I might think of it another way: I want my family to have clean clothes, so they can be comfortable and hygenic. I want to give them a variety of wholesome, healthy foods so they can be nourished in all the ways their brains and bodies need to grow. And I do round after round of dishes so that the seven of us can enjoy a common living space that is organized. Plus, clean dishes mean I don’t have to worry about as many germs when we’re eating.

Knowing my real reason for doing the mundane activities of everyday motherhood gives me a boost of pride, because I do what I do out of love for my family. I want them to grow up healthy, adjusted, and with practical living skills. This is a form of self-awareness that helps me access the third thing I didn’t see before, or at least lost sight of, when I was in a bad headspace.

In our hobbies, avocations, and recreational activities, there is a third thing, too. Often, these are the ways we tap into our own creativity. Anything can be creative. And whatever is creative is life-giving. Consider that: the things you love to do breathe life into your world. They inspire you. Encourage you. Remind you of your unique contributions to the world.

We forget that the third thing—like writing about myself when I thought I was writing about Christina Campbell—is present, germinating in the soil of our hearts. And the best part is that we have agency to choose how, and when, and why we will cultivate it.

What’s the third thing that drives your life? If you water it regularly, it will sprout its greenery. This is the garden of your heart. Tend to it with the same care that you tend to the rest of your life.

1. Goldberg, Natalie. Old Friend From Far Away, p. 291.