Time

One of the things most of us struggle with is time. On the surface the last couple of years have had an abundance of the stuff. To all intents and purposes time has been sloshing around in vast unused quantities, but I've not found that I have had extra. To be honest, I've found that there has been far less time than I've needed. It's like it's been slipping away and I'm constantly hunting for more. Like keys it's been something I'm continuously searching for and only finding when I've... well.. when I've run out of time...

You can probably tell from this word soup that filling your time with endless tasks in an effort to rebuild your writing career is actually really bad for your writing career.  With many Covid restrictions ending I feel that I've been constantly playing catch-up with all the things that I set aside two years ago. This fierce struggle to replaster all of the gaps and cracks in my career has been damaging to both my health, and my creativity.

After a bit of very bad business news recently I was talking to a very wise friend and chatting about how much I was doing and she gently stopped me and said "you've told me what you say you have to do, but what is it that you want to do?"

I sort of blustered a bit and we went our separate ways, but her words stuck with me. They sat in my head because it was a kind of revelation - I hadn't actually given any thought to what I wanted to do. Not once in all my busyness (and business) had I thought about what I wanted to do, or what might make me happy. I realised that I don't have to carry on in this set path, I can choose a different one.

I can't always afford to think about that, and for a lot of my life there was no way I could afford a choice. This is something that set a pattern in my thinking and I'm still desperately trying to hang onto absolutely every opportunity in case I can't pay the bills. I've done this for about four decades, for most of my life. I know that most of us struggle to think about not doing something because finances don't allow it, but I do think that it is important to stop now and again. To take the time to think about the happiness gaps in our lives can be an important thing for our mental and physical health. Back in July 2020 I wrote about how we should all try to stop and notice the small wins, and yet I'd forgotten to do this.

So, here I am saying it again. Stop looking at all the things everyone else is achieving, and wondering why you aren't in the same place, just look around you and pick a few small wins, and maybe ditch some stuff that hasn't panned out. 

Right now I want to write something beautiful, but I know that to achieve that I'm going to need to take a bit of time to focus on some other things and doing everything all at once isn't good. I'm going to stop and look around at some of my small wins, and maybe rid myself of some of the things that are causing me upset and sadness. We can't always deal with everything at once, but maybe by dealing with just a couple of things at a time we can cope with the rest.

This blog first appeared on Awfully Big Blog Adventure