1178. Sometimes You Just Have to Throw Your Hat Over the Fence

“At major turning points in our lives, the circumstances are rarely perfect for us to make the next move or decision about what to do next. The obstacles may be vast, but it’s at this point that you ‘throw your hat over the fence,’ or in other words, ‘just go for it!’

“In my experience, most people don’t know what they are good at—what they are naturally good at. So sometimes you have to find one or kind of create one for yourself. You have got to put food on the table and send your kid to school. So, there are those reasons. I think if we are good girls or boys, we try to fulfill the expectations that are inevitably held for us. If we’re bad girls and bad boys, we’re fighting against those expectations. But in either case, we’re still being driven by other people’s expectations. It often takes time, maturity, mistakes and even unhappiness to lead you to what you really want to do–to start to find what it is that makes you excited in the morning, that makes you want to be doing whatever it is that you want to do.”

Allegra Huston is the author of “Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found”, the novels “A Stolen Summer” and “Say My Name,” and many screenplays including the award-winning short film “Good Luck, Mr. Gorski,” which she also produced. In 2019 she published how-to books on “the stuff nobody teaches you,” including “How to Read for an Audience” by Allegra and “How to Edit and Be Edited” by Allegra and James Navé. Allegra’s and James’ most recent collaboration is a book for authors, “Write What You Don’t Know.”