Letters to Live For

In our first book, Repacking Your Bags, we included a series of what we called Postcard Exercises. In these, readers were invited to open a dialogue with a partner through the simple act of sending a postcard to that person.

As simple as these postcards were, they proved to be remarkably effective. We heard from many readers who used the postcards to begin and carry on discussions that were important and useful in many ways.

In this book, and in our own practice, we take this concept one step further, and encourage the writing of letters— Letters to Live For— with the hope they can help clarify that elusive something to live for we are hunting.

We have found that there is something quite profound about the lost art of letter-writing, something that encourages us to speak wholeheartedly and enables us to see ourselves authentically as we present ourselves in writing to others.

Like Schmidt, who finally discovered his innermost needs and desires by corresponding with the orphan boy in Africa, we reveal ourselves to ourselves in the act of letter-writing and come to discover aspects of ourselves that were lost or forgotten.

When Dave turned 50 this year, he set for himself the task of writing one letter a week to 50 people in his life who had influenced and/ or touched him deeply in some way. He set out to communicate, as authentically and wholeheartedly as he could, what each person had meant to him and how grateful he was to have known him or her.

Sorry to say, he didn’t fully complete the task, but he did manage about two dozen missives to old (and new) friends, former lovers, and individuals like his wife, daughter, and his co-author and mentor, Richard. They weren’t handwritten, but they were printed out on paper and sent through the mail. Somewhat amazingly, in almost every case, he received back—sometimes relatively quickly, sometimes months later—a letter in reply. And in all those cases, his correspondents said how touched they were to hear from him, especially in a real old-fashioned paper and sent-with-a-stamp letter.

So, we encourage you to try something like this, too. Write and send a letter to someone in your life who has touched you in some way. Let them know how you feel about their influence on you and what knowing them has meant to you.

For the theme of this first letter, you might, like Schmidt, pick a young person with whom you feel a connection that is wholehearted and authentic.

We encourage you to write to someone younger than you—your child, grandchild, a student—with heartfelt words about the years they are living. Try to come from your own experience rather than being prescriptive. Use this as an opportunity for self-discovery rather than solemn advice.

Here is a sample from us, from Dave to his daughter, Mimi, who at the time, had just turned 10.

 

Dear Mimi,

Congratulations on your tenth birthday. You will now be a double-digit age for the rest of the time I know you.

Ten was quite a year for me. It was the year I first danced with a member of the opposite sex—Pam Mayer, in the basement of Sally Perkins’s house. The song, if I recall correctly, was “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles. I wonder if that had any bearing on my own career as a writer myself.

The ten years between now and when you turn 20 will, if they are anything like mine, be the most intense ten years you will experience in your whole life. These will be the years in which you really begin to discover your own voice, and use it.

This decade was the decade of deep and abiding friendships. I remember thinking that my real family during this time was my gang of buddies; I’m sure I was influenced more at 15 by the attitudes and opinions of my friends than I was by those of my parents. I was lucky, I think, that most of my pals had their heads screwed on pretty straight—not that we were total nerds or goody-two-shoes, but it’s good that we all basically wanted to make some sort on ongoing contributions to the world; this kept most of us from being too self-centered and as selfish as we might have been.

The time you’re living through is also the time when I first fell in love—or at least what felt like love at the time. Again, I was pretty lucky here. My first real girlfriend was a kind and caring person who really did like me a lot. I trust you will find real affection in your first romantic relationships, too.

As I said earlier, I was lucky that my parents put up with me all through the years from 10 to 20; I wasn’t always the easiest person to tolerate. But even in my worst moments, I never doubted that they loved me and this enabled me to carry on, in spite of myself sometimes.

I just want to say to you that you need never worry about the depth and solidity of my—and your mother’s— love for you. It’s probably pretty likely we will have some difficult times over the next decade, some disagreements and arguments. But if you always know that we both love you with all our hearts—even when we don’t love what you’re doing—I think we’ll all be okay.

Mostly, I can’t wait to see what the coming years bring. I support you wholeheartedly as you begin to undertake your own ongoing hunt for what has been called “the invisible game.” It’s going to be a wild ride and taking it with you will be a quite a trip, I’m sure.

Love always,

Dad

 

See if this Letter to Live For is one that works for you. Try writing to a child—your own, one with whom you have a close relationship, or even one you merely know of, through association or perhaps, fiction. What matters is that you put your whole self into the writing and see what you can discover about yourself in the process. If possible, you may want to share the letter with that child; the ensuing conversation may be even more powerful than the letter itself.