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Thursday Thoughts
Thursdays and Fridays are already feeling like the most difficult part of this new writing regimen. I’d wanted Thursdays to be nice, serious, think-pieces: philosophical, analytical, brilliant little pearls of insight. The problem? No idea what to write about this week. And, as I’ve been ransacking my brain to come up with something, I can see this becoming all-too-common occurrence. And, don’t get me started about Fridays. Who knows what Fridays will be about? Ideas, suggestions, taunts – all welcome.
So, likely, this is going to be a bit ramble-y.
I was reminded recently of the somewhat clichéd, but, often surprisingly useful exercise of writing one’s own obituary. It’s a great way to focus, and clear out the things that, ultimately, aren’t important. To create a document that reflects how you’d like to be remembered, and which highlights the goals which haven’t been pursued as actively as they might have been, had life’s clutter not intervened and obscured those things that are really important. The clarity this exercise brought was, in itself, inspiring. It helped me remember what was actually important to me.
The utility of having clear goals meant that I could formulate actually steps in the direction of those goals, of which this consistent writing thing is a small part. While I’ve had some of these steps in mind for awhile, I finally have the time and incentive to put them into practice.
And, so far, I’ve really been excited and interested about all of this. And, just as I’m getting some momentum, I have to go to work tomorrow. And the very thought of having to go there fills me with dread, and apathy; I feel like I’m voluntarily reporting to my own execution, or some exquisite torture session. The more I think about it, the less I want to go. Worse, I’m dreading the fact that, after Monday, I’ve got no scheduled time off until September. It’s tempting to simply walk in and quit tomorrow, and use the month’s leave I still have accumulated to find something else. But, the fear of not being able to find another job before the money runs out is somehow more paralyzing than the dread of walking into my windowless jail.
I wish fear were less powerful. I wish I had the courage to jump my current job ship. I keep telling myself that it wouldn’t be too much of a risk, or, that having an entire extra month’s salary to pay off my remaining non-house debt will make it worth staying until I’ve got a new job. But, I also think of switching to a new job wherein I’ll not be able to take a vacation of any significance for months, and then, I feel exhausted and burned-out all over again.
In the end of all this, I guess two things are clear: one, I’m quite relieved to be pursuing something more positive. It has been good at renewing some of my enthusiasm, and it’s nice to have some clarity, especially when it has felt like the correct path to follow. But, the second thing that is clear is that I must get out of ACC as soon as humanly possible.
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g'night Denver!
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and, g'night Spokane! Cool to almost meet...
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The point was not to be interesting or witty (well, theoretically, but you know how these things are) but to capture conversational tone.
The other thing it did was force me to pay attention to my surroundings and notice two things:
1. That I noticed something specific happening and it attracted enough interest to become a conscious noticing
2. That I could take time to write these down if tasked with this simply by carrying a small pad of paper.
So, perhaps not just isolating yourself to conversations, but try to bring a pad with you on Fridays and just write semi-stream-of-consciousness about something you observe, as or just after you have observed it. Perhaps transcription, perhaps description, perhaps what was going on in your head.
There's my $.02.
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I'll go with that being $.01.