I was lost in Wrightsville Beach, trying to find a restaurant I'd seen reviewed in an independent newspaper I'd picked up at the hotel. While I looked for a road between beach houses where I could turn around, I set the radio to scan local stations. I stopped it and sent it back to a call-on show. A woman was saying, "I know I'm not in the right job. But how do I figure out what resonates with me?"

The host of the show asked, "What do you think you want to do?"

The woman answered, "I think I want to write."

"Write what?"

The caller admitted she didn't know. "Something that helps people," was all she could offer.

I was completely absorbed now. This woman was echoing what had been circling in my own brain for years now. But this is where I knew what I would advise the caller.

And this is where the host lost me.

Barely disguising her disdain, the host said, "So, what, you want to be the next Deepak Chopra?" as if that were a ridiculous notion.

"And if she does, that's a great and noble goal!" I yelled at the radio.

The host made suggestions for some soul-searching exercises that weren't off the mark, but her tone was judgmental and condescending now. She told the caller to keep her job but to try to narrow her goals and to call back when she'd done that.

I turned the radio off and, wishing I had the caller's number, I talked to her there in the car for another ten minutes while I looked for another restaurant.

"Do you keep a journal? Do you write just for yourself? Could you write a message for a target audience you'd like to help--kids or young women who are like you were? People who feel discouraged? Others who could learn from your mistakes? Could you start by writing a memoir? Could you write about a turning point in your own life? Could you start looking for life lessons in your daily experiences that you could write about?"

I knew I would have sent this woman away encouraged, fired up to write, even if only for herself. There was nothing wrong or vague about her expressed desire. Why did it provoke such a negative reaction in the host when the apparent purpose of the show was to advise callers?

There's a special circle of hell for those who shoot holes in others' hopes. And if anyone needed a new job, it was that host.

I loved the scene in the remake of "Father of the Bride" when Diane Keaton told Steve Martin something like, "Every time you roll your eyes, every time you complain about the expense, you subtract joy from your daughter's wedding day." I've wanted to force some people to watch that scene in a Clockwork Orange re-programming sort of way.

Skeet-shooting at someone else's happiness is easy, low, and despicable. Building up another person isn't much harder, and it produces none of the guilt tearing things down creates.

Why do some of us see our role not as cheerleader but as crepe hanger?

Who would choose to be in the presence of someone who thinks his or her calling is to pop balloons?

Who would give that person a radio call-in show?

Any time you look at the clock and groan, that’s a pretty clear sign.

Any time you hear your boss coming and think, “Oh geeze,” that’s a pretty clear sign.

Any time you give said boss the opportunity to jump to your defense with a statement along the lines of, “She did exactly as I directed her to do,” and instead, said boss smiles blithely and blinks like a puppy in the sunshine while you twist slowly in the wind, it’s a pretty clear sign.

When you start sitting in the john for long periods because it's the one place where no one will bother you for ten minutes because you’re going to scream if you have to spend another eight hours smiling when you want to let that scream fly, that, it would seem, is also a clear sign.

When you start imagining involved scenarios in which fictional folks with the same initials as some who’ve given you grief fall face first into cow dung—-the wet, fresh variety-—that’s a likely indicator.

When you are grateful for a non-networked computer that the tech department isn’t keen on working on, that might be a clue.

When you start making lists of clear signs, it’s over.