Death of a Saleswoman (Find Your Agency Before It’s Too Late)

It should have started like this… (That gimmick has almost run its course, I promise.)

It’s 6:30 on a Friday night, and I’m still in the office.

At least I’ve made it to the door. But at the front desk I ran into a colleague who’s also working too late, and we’ve struck up a conversation.

My friend is working on a master’s degree, an absolutely impressive feat considering everything else on her plate. She’s telling me about all the books she read for one particular class, and I’m having major flashbacks to 12th grade AP English.

Right now she’s reading a play. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

“Oh man,” I tell her. “That play’s haunted me since high school.”

It was a summer assignment we quickly glossed over, but I still remember one particular quote:

I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

I don’t actually remember the plot of Death of a Salesman, just that it’s about a bunch of people discontented with their lives. At least some of them work hard, to no avail.

My high school self hadn’t even had her first job yet, but she instinctively knew there was something terrible about doing the wrong thing, being unfulfilled, spinning your wheels until you’re old and burned out with a wrecked family and nothing to show for it.

I thought of that quote over and over for nearly twenty years, fearing its truth, feeling certain that I was wasting my life but accepting that inevitability. But it wasn’t until I was repeating those words through a plexiglass COVID barrier on a Friday night when I wasn’t even getting paid overtime that I realized something horribly ironic.

I worked in sales.

Another Missed Catalyst

I was the sales(wo)man, and I hadn’t even realized how literal that was.

I never meant to end up in sales. I thought I’d stay at my favorite non-profit organizing events, fundraising, and managing volunteers until I published a book in my non-existent spare time and left to become a full time novelist, my dream career. But as eight years whiled away it turned out rest was non-existent too. So was peace of mind. Eventually it was time to leave. One of those quantum leaps, where I went from all-in to all-out with irreversible force.

But writing was my only backup plan, and I wasn’t yet brave enough to do that, so my career became a game of who I knew and who would take me. I knew several folks from a manufacturing company through one of my fundraisers. They needed an inside sales rep, I needed a change, and everything fell into place.

I had several good years there until the supply chain crumbled, but it was never where I intended to stay, or what I intended to do.

That Friday night should have been a wake up call. It should have been the night I decided to leave. I thought of that quote that haunted me and how I was actually living it and I was absolutely horrified.

Then I shrugged my shoulders and went home.

I probably nursed my sorrows with a nice big bowl of ice cream. Turned on Netflix, too tired to do much else.

That night was at least eight months before I finally left. Maybe longer.

Unlike every proper literary hero, I’d just ignored another catalyst. Decided to just go home, instead of starting my quest.

It is always a matter, my darling, of life or death, as I had forgotten.

Psychology Lessons From My Writing Pals

A couple years ago I got connected to a few other children’s book writers. Every month we send each other a chapter of something we’ve been working on and then get together on Zoom to talk about it and help each other improve.

I wrote the first draft of Phoenix Falling in 2004. Since then, I’ve had several friends read it and give me helpful feedback, and it’s gone through several rounds of revisions. But there’s something different about having other writers critique your work. Writers make excellent readers because they look at your manuscript from a craft perspective. They can articulate things that others might feel but cannot explain.

One topic my critique group talks about a lot is agency. (And no, I don’t mean literary agencies, the collectives of those illusive agents we’ll one day attract to sell our work.) I’ve read so many books I’m honestly a little embarrassed I needed someone else to point this out to me, but here it goes. It’s important for the main character of a good story to make things happen, instead of things just happening to them. They should drive the plot. The plot shouldn’t drive them.

Simple, right? A hero’s not much of a hero if they aren’t taking risks, making bold choices. Doing something.

Katniss volunteered as tribute. Frodo took the ring to Mordor, even though he really wanted to go back to the shire.

So one night we’re discussing my latest chapter, how things are happening to Maia (my heroine) but she’d not the one making them happen, and I start wondering why she’s such a passive character.

And then revelation strikes.

Maia has no agency because I have no agency.

It was a mic drop moment. A brutally honest explanation of my entire life that I knew was utterly true.

They say to write what you know. I admit I don’t know anything about living on other planets. But I didn’t know anything about making bold choices, either.

Find Your Agency (Before It’s Too Late)

That night in the office I knew I was unhappy, but I didn’t think think there was anything I could do about it. Sound familiar?

The problem was I didn’t have any agency in my own life. It didn’t even occur to me that I could have agency. I was so used to accepting whatever conditions I was in and trying to make the best of them that I didn’t realize there was another way to live.

I didn’t have to waste my life–and you don’t either. I didn’t realize it that night in the office and I didn’t even realize it during my critique group but months later when a coworker said: “I wish I could volunteer as tribute” it finally clicked. I could take charge of my life. I could make a change. I could embrace my catalyst and go on a hero’s journey.

So can you.

There are some things we cannot change, but there’s a whole lot that we can. It’s easier not to, of course. There may be comfort and stability on the path of least resistance, but I talked last week about how dangerous they can be. Because that’s the path of Willy Loman, of wasted lives and washed up sales(wo)men.

I have a tendency, when faced with a choice I don’t want to make, of doing nothing. I tell myself I’ll make a choice, but time passes, and I’m so busy, and eventually the opportunity is lost. But choosing to do nothing is a choice, and often its the wrong one. I’ve challenged myself not to do that any longer.

I challenge you the same thing.

Because you’re not actually shackled to that job that makes you miserable. You can make better use of your time if you decide to be deliberate about it. You can say no to something–or someone–toxic. Set a boundary. Push yourself out of your comfort zone so you meet someone new.

Rewrite your life. Become the hero.

You don’t have to be haunted by regrets. Do what you’ve left undone. Fix what’s broken. Stop beating yourself up over something that is not inevitable.

Your life isn’t going to fix itself. That’s your job.

But I believe in you.