Do It Yourself
While I've spent most of the day with the urge to blog in the back of my head, I just logged on and felt the actual act futile. Dramatic, I know, but really... who cares? I'm not promoting this, I'm not posting consistently, I have no goals. Advertisers are not flocking to my door. It feels pointless.I hate pointless.But the key here, I think, is that is exactly the reason why I should be blogging. Reading and writing are luscious acts that I don't let myself indulge in enough. They're about process. It's about how you feel while you're doing them. It's about flow.Flow and I don't meet very often. That focused, attentive, humming-along-kinda vibe that passes hours in minutes and keeps you geared up for days... nope. Doesn't happen for me much. Maybe I don't challenge myself or maybe I make the stakes too high. I struggle with what I "should" be doing, with things being perfect, with being 100% prepared. I don't become absorbed or engaged, restless to keep at it until I know it's complete.
"Life is a do-it-yourself project" ~ Napoleon Hill
Today I made 14 cold calls. The results sucked. No appointments were booked, no one seemed interested, I couldn't hook a single person. And there's no way it made it any easier to do it again tomorrow or the next day... but the amazing thing is, I was OK with it. Not OK with the results, really, but OK with myself. I had set out to do something today and I did it. I completed a difficult task and didn't back down, freak out or cry once. I actually felt high. Could've been the Mochatonix, but really... I did something that was challenging and I met that challenge.I'm realizing more each day that I am not a victim. We each have one life, with finite time constantly rushing away from us. Today will never happen again. Who knows what tomorrow brings? But I know that today I put myself first. I did was I thought mattered and I could feel myself flourishing.It's like back in college, when after 3 years of being out of my parents' house I realized I could eat ANYTHING I wanted for dinner. I didn't even have to have dinner, but if I did, I could have a salad or oatmeal or Oreos. I was free! And let me tell you, when you talk to people-pleasing Type-As like me, "free" is not really on the vocab list.Today I felt that again. I wrote, listened to audios while walking the dog, met my obligations, made cold calls, went to therapy, hit the gym, spoke with my mom, food shopped, helped cook dinner, cleaned up, took a bath and read a book (!!!), and now I'm blogging. What a fantastically full day just like another day!So I'm blogging because it's a way to capture the ebb and flow, to mark my progress, to see that the vision I have for my life is possible. Or even to create that vision. My life is a do-it-myself project and I'm finally starting to live that way. What matters is what I care about, the work that I do, and how I want to be. That used to scare me, but now it's liberating. Life is a process, the whole "enjoy the journey" hoopla, that I'm just beginning to understand. I'm grateful for every glimmer, every flash of the possibilities.