The Nineteen Moves

Every chapter ended with one thing to do. Here they are together.

None of them takes longer than twenty minutes except the sixth week of number fifteen, and not one of them requires you to tell another human being what you’re doing.

You can work them in order, one a week, which is about four and a half months. You can pick the three that apply to you and ignore the rest. You can do the first one tonight and nothing else for a year.

What you cannot do is read them, agree with them, and change. I’ve watched people nod their way through better material than this for twenty-five years and go home exactly the same, and the nodding is not a smaller version of the doing. It’s a different activity entirely.

One. The Share You Asked For. Write down how you actually left. Three or four sentences, the real version, not the one you’d give at a funeral. What was going on that season, what you stopped doing first, whether anybody noticed, whether you wanted them to. Then put it in a drawer.

Two. Coming to Yourself. Draw a line down a page. On the left, what you did, in verbs. On the right, what happened to you regardless of what kind of person you were. Take your time on the right column. It’ll be shorter than it should be.

Three. The Speech You Rehearsed. Write your speech word for word, starting with If I came back, here’s what I’d want understood up front. Then underline every place you set a limit. Those are your terms.

Four. Still a Long Way Off. Somewhere alone, out loud, say the one sentence that’s actually true. Not the whole speech. Not the qualifications. Then stop talking and don’t fill the silence.

Five. I Failed Where Everyone Could See. Say the actual thing you did, in specific words, once. Not I made mistakes back then. The version with details in it.

Six. My Past Is Public Record. Write your job title. Whatever your version of the tax collector is. Three or four words, no sentence around it, no explanation. Read it once and notice you’re still sitting there.

Seven. My Marriage Ended. Go one place you’ve been avoiding because somebody there knows. Explain nothing. Just be a person in a room and let whoever knows go on knowing.

Eight. I’ve Got Nothing Left to Give. Do the inventory again, the other side of the ledger this time. What you know how to do, who trusts you, what you’ve lived through, who calls you when it goes wrong, and what you know now that you’d have paid money for at thirty-five. Don’t argue with the entries while you’re writing them.

Nine. I Was One Man in Public and Another in Private. Name the audience, not the behavior. Whose face was in your head. One name if you can get it to one. Then ask whether they’re still in the room.

Ten. I’m Still Angry About It. Two sentences. What happened, with names. Then what it cost you. The second one is the one you’ve never written.

Eleven. I Asked and Nothing Happened. Say it out loud, alone: Lord, if you had been here. With your own thing in it. Then don’t take it back and don’t append but I know you had a reason.

Twelve. I’m Not Sure I Believe It Anymore. Say one sentence to one person with a face: I don’t know if I believe any of this anymore. Pick somebody who won’t try to fix it in ten seconds. Don’t build a case.

Thirteen. Nobody Knows My Name Anymore. Do one useful thing this week that nobody will ever know about. No credit, no mention, no story afterward. Tell no one, including yourself later.

Fourteen. What If It Never Took in Me. Get in a room with somebody who knew you before. Not a church. A brother, two men you used to work with, the friend you stopped calling. You don’t have to say anything about any of this.

Fifteen. After the Party. For six weeks, do not evaluate. Keep doing the small things and do not once stop to ask whether it’s working. Take the instrument away.

Sixteen. The Father Left the Party. Two questions, slowly. What have you been slaving for that was already yours? And what have you never asked for, as opposed to been refused?

Seventeen. Your Old Life Is the Assignment. Name the room where your history is an asset instead of a liability. Then write down one person who’s in it right now.

Eighteen. The Man Who Only Brought People. Call them. Ask how they’re doing, then be quiet long enough that they have room to tell you the truth. If they say fine, say all right, and call again in three weeks.

Nineteen. Now You Watch the Road. Go stand where they can see you. Same diner, same morning. Answer the phone at eleven at night. Be findable, at a known place, by somebody who is going to need a name eight months from now.

If you only ever do one of these, do number four.

Everything in this book is downstream of a person saying one true sentence out loud and then not negotiating afterward.