“Such is the pleasure of projecting that many content themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute.”
–Samuel Johnson
I am fighting hard against the undertow of stress that is pulling on me these days. There is much to be done, and oh, I will get it done, but it’s easy to allow myself to sink into a kind of noble procrastination. By that I mean choosing “busy-ness” because it gives me an excuse to not dive into, and finish projects, I’ve started. Why wouldn’t I want to finish them you might ask? Because, if I finish them, and put them out into the world, they might fail. I can’t fail at laundry. Or chores. Or the various sundry of errands that I find myself swept up in. I am really rather good at those things.
So. I need the calmness of heart to push through my noble procrastinating, but not so calm that I fall prey to what ol’ Samuel was talking about up there in between those quotation marks.
So here it is, a list of things that I am working on, so that I can be held accountable by the internetz.
1. A conference/retreat (a concreat? A Reconferencetreat?) for creative women, specifically geared towards moms. Even more specifically geared to those moms who have much in them to do, but haven’t learned, or in my case, forgot how to, make time for themselves and their art. Who feel guilty even wanting to pursue it. More on this later. But you heard it here first. This one is a big one. In the next year. It. Will. Happen. My friend, Betsy Garmon is going to be involved, too!
2. The book I have been working on for about two years has now broken off into two different projects. The one I’m choosing to focus on now is centered around my my mom’s death 21 years ago. Only now it’s become something entirely different from a book. Much to my horror, it has morphed into a one woman show, complete with props, the portrayal of different characters, and the singing of songs. I’ve been fighting against it so hard. So, so hard. But I can’t shake it. It’s a persistent daydream and if I have learned anything, I have learned to pay attention to my daydreams.
3. Learning how to take real nice pictures. Not because my husband is who he is. Not because I want to be a photographer. I just want to experiment in another medium. That’s all. Just stretching creative muscles is all.
What about you? What are you working on? TALK TO ME PEOPLE.
I’m working on being myself. It’s tough because some people want you to be someone else. And it’s tough because being me isn’t easy.
Martin,
In the little bit of time that I got to spend with you on that big ol’ boat a few years ago, I observed in you such a deep and wonderful personality, rich with subtle (and hysterical) humour, and heart so full and wide. You are a joy to be around. Anyone who wants you to be someone else is D-U-M-B and no one I’D want to know that’s for dang sure.
If you haven’t read already, you should read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
It is amazing and life altering…. it will help your noble procrastination. My journey this next year consists of consistency and personal growth. Becoming the best health coach that I can and loving every second of it!
I haven’t! And I shall! Thanks for the recommendation. I am always looking for good books to read. A health coach, eh? What does that entail exactly?
I help people get healthy…
So if there is a person that needs to lose weight to get healthy I help them on that journey-if they don’t need to lose weight but just don’t eat healthy or don’t have healthy eating habits then I help them on that journey as well. It has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have a client who this is her 5th week on my program and she is down just over 22 lbs., her clothes don’t fit anymore, and everyone is starting to notice her transformation-it gives me great joy to be part of that.
Um… if you do that retreat I want to come. Sounds like something I need.
And I too have opted to just get on with “busy-ness” lately, and for the same reasons. The extra excuse of having a baby isn’t going to last for very long, and my own daydreams are nagging at me too hard. Right now I am just trying to make a calendar. Just a calendar. If I can get that done I think I will have lit a gargantuan-sized fire under my butt and be able to move on to new things on my long list.
Natalyn,
I expect to see you at the retreat. For serious. Think next year, but plan on it. Capisce?
Now, go and make that calendar your – er – female dog. Own it. But don’t wait for the calendar to start. That was one of my mistakes. Thinking I had to plan it out perfectly. My friend, Betsy, challenged me to find the time in the cracks and the crevices. Thus the reason I gave my first music release in 4 years the title, “The Cracks and the Crevices”. I am hoping to hear that you’ve put yourself on the map.
Love the word noble procrastination ( :
On my part, I am learning juggling and walking a slackline, well I should say I am learning on how not giving up learning juggling and walking a slackline! ( :
Takki,
Are you literally learning juggling? That would be amazing if you are. Every time I try to juggle I end up hitting myself in the face with the falling objects I’m supposedly supposed to be catching and re-throwing.
What do you mean by a “slackline”? This is a term I’ve never heard before.
Slackline is kind of like a tightrope, but… slack. hehe
My friends did it for fun in school, they’d take like a strap puller (come-along for us southerners) and tighten it between two trees. It’s fairly tight, but it bows a great deal under the walkers weight. It’s good fun until you fall off with one leg on either side, because it snaps back up as you’re racking yourself on it.
My goals are to make time to 1) get my photography portfolio/website/5year plan done, 2) get my ’53 belair on the road again, and 3) finally meet you and Zack (because you guys just seem like some seriously chill/fun people to hang out with).
I have one word for this: YES. Yes to it all… Keep me posted!
Kristen,
Darling. That was 8 words.
Heh heh.
Ha! I thought about that when I wrote it. But there was just SO MUCH YES that I couldn’t just stop with one. :O)
I simply must learn to say no, and leave more time for my passion (photography) and myself. Even though my last child at home is 16 and a junior in high school, I feel as busy as ever. It’s good and useful things, things I enjoy, but finding myself almost as exhausted in the mornings as the night before – day in and day out – wears me thin (not physically of course :-/ ) and cloaks my creativity in a shadow just out of reach…
Oh my friend, I hear you. I do, I do. It sounds like you are due for some pruning. There may be a lot going on, a lot of “volume” as it were, but nothing flowering. I would humbly submit that you pare back. Make a list and cross off everything that you don’t HAVE to do.
I want to learn to brave and take the risk to that may lead to failure [or success!], instead of staying in the save comfort zone. But not sure how to take the first step.
M,
I’m not sure what risk you’re wanting to take or what your first step may be. However, I can tell you this, and I learned this the very very very very very hard way. Every decision that I’ve made in this life that I have regretted have been the ones I made when I was worried about what other people were going to think of me. Once one gets that notion/fear out of the way, making the first step is always easier.
During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem. … I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament. . . . Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon.
-Thomas Edison
You must create this retreat– it resonates with me- and I know you will – You are meant to create it.