"Kill The Bucket List: Start Living Your Dreams"

Novelist T.J. Tao said it: "Only by losing everything, do I gain the Freedom to build a life of uncluttered purpose." Tao is actually the pen name of Michael J. Orr, who writes that the aphorism "was a literal statement based on circumstances I was going through at the time. You see, I wrote that quote on November 11, 2018, three days after the deadliest and more destructive wildfire in California history had destroyed my hometown of Paradise."

He continues: "Ninety-five percent of the homes in Paradise were destroyed, including my own.... My family and I had, quite literally, lost everything: our home, our community, our jobs, our pets, and our belongings. ... That is where the Freedom came from, the idea that since we had to start over from scratch, where did we want to do it and what did I want to do?"

It led Orr and his family to move to Idaho. Wanting to write, he began publishing a series of novels under the T.J. Tao name (including "Burn Scar," which imagines the Camp Fire taking place on a ridge in Idaho) and, under his own name, a motivational "kick in the pants" called "Kill The Bucket List: Start Living Your Dreams" ($7.99 in paperback from WordsmithMojo Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle).

"Far too many of us, men and women alike," Orr writes, "have become comfortable in our discomfort, instead of using our discomfort to stimulate a change. ... What if you could choose to Kill Your Bucket List and live your dreams, instead of putting them off?" His answer: "YOU CAN!"

The goal is to approach one's dreams with a dose of reality (one may not win the Nobel Prize in Literature but one can write), humility (which "will allow you to suck without throwing in the towel"), and plenty of baby steps: "Start> practice> suck> practice> suck> practice> Aha> practice> suck...less> practice> improve> practice> get better > practice> become competent...."

Too often, he says, "F.E.A.R. becomes our answer: Forget Everything And Run." We need to "re-frame our fears and self-doubt." F.E.A.R. becomes "Face Everything and Rejoice."

Readers may find that's just what they need.