Something I've noticed recently is how much in common these two pursuits share, and I'm struggling with the way that one of them is slowly becoming tolerable, while the other continues to give me fits.
It seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world to commit to meditating 15 minutes a day, and writing at least 15 minutes a day. I have the vague sense that people have struggled with more dire challenges -- my problem is the very definition of whiny-ass titty baby luxury problem -- but, well, there it is. I'm lucky (?) enough to be able to set goals that are not imposed from the outside -- but because of their nature, and my nature, they seem to be exceedingly difficult to get myself to pursue.
Yet I'm comforted by the fact that I put off meditating for months and months and months, and now regularly sit for 15 minutes at a stretch without hardly any mental annoyance whatsoever. If I can create one such habit, I can create another.
(And yes, I still suck at meditation -- my mind wanders, it twists and turns and daydreams, but I just bring it back to my breath and all is forgiven. I've started to meditate regularly, 6x/week for 15 minutes a day, and while I'm not sure that it's helping me achieve enlightenment and/or inner peace, I feel better afterwards, at least for a little while, and I don't feel bad if my mind wandered quite a bit during the exercise.)
On the other hand, writing anything exercise-based for even 15 minutes, if I'm not feeling inspired, feels like swallowing hot coals, in that it fills me with a feeling of mild unpleasantness. The problem is avoidance, more than anything; I spent much of the latter half of the day avoiding writing, because my gut told me that I wouldn't live up to expectations and would thus feel like shit . . . of course, another part of my brain consistently told me that because I was avoiding writing, I should also feel like shit.
What the hell is this? I mean, seriously, what am I doing to myself here? I understand that under many conditions, striving is supposed to lead to happiness, but christ, in the current instance it seems to be leading to nothing but self-inflicted pain. Though -- interestingly -- it's not the activity that is leading to pain, it's the avoidance of the activity.
Which, of course, leaves two paths -- give up on the pursuit, which would probably do little but replace the pain of avoidance with the pain/shame of avoiding avoidance, or embrace the path and experience the pain of failure.
When I put it that way . . . it seems rather obvious what must be done. Naturally, I figure this out at 4AM, when I'm drifting off and ready to crash for the night.
One of my current favorite quotes is "What a wonderful world it would be if we all did as well today as we think we will do tomorrow." I am rarely optimistic . . . but I think tomorrow will be a good day.
But we'll see, eh?
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