For the last few weeks I’ve suffered from
a condition I can't quite name but seems to flare up from time to time,
especially when a new year approaches. It impairs my ability to get words from
my mind onto the actual page, to get my yoga pant-clad bottom to the place
where the yoga actually happens.
You see,
it’s not a disorder of intention, it’s one of execution.
There’s fortunately nothing
physically wrong with me—my right (write) hand isn’t paralyzed and I’m thankful
to have the ability to exercise my body. I can’t claim writer’s block because
the ideas are there, just as I can’t blame my procrastination around exercising
on not knowing how to do it…it’s just that I come up with every excuse in the
world to NOT ACTUALLY DO IT.
And this
is where the shame comes in.
Because what kind of person
is fortunate enough to have the health and ability to move her body, to be
provided with people actually willing to read the things she writes, yet
actively chooses to get in her own way? What kind of person actively
participates in the sabotaging of her own forward progress?
The answer to that is, in my
mind, a failure. Perhaps you think I’m being too harsh, but let me plead my
case.
One of the distractions I’ve
used lately to stall forward progress (unintentionally but still...) is the
suddenly very urgent need to clean and declutter my house from top to
bottom—something I’ve decided must come first before all other things. As I
cleaned out from under my bed, I found the large Rubbermaid container I’ve used
as a keepsake box over the years. I opened the lid for the first time in a long
while and rummaged through, finding some old vision boards and journals. On the
pages I found goals from four years ago and made a grim discovery: my goals
then were no different than the ones I’m still chasing after today.
I haven’t written the book.
I haven’t lost the extra ten
pounds (well, I have here and there, but seem to gain it back).
I haven’t gone all organic
or sugar-free.
I still have debt.
It’s not to say I’ve made no
forward progress--I’ve gone after those things and, for periods of time, been
successful. I’ve started a blog and gained some readers, I’ve cut back on
sweets at times, and I’ve made a good dent in my debt…but it hasn’t been ONE
year folks, it’s been FOUR.
1,460 days wasn’t enough
time to achieve my dreams?
I can try defending my
inching, rather than sprinting, forward with the fact that I’m a full-time
working mother of a young child, but at what point does that fact become an
excuse? And, if it’s indeed a valid excuse, it raises the question:
is it a worthwhile endeavor
then to dream at all?
The optimist in me says “of
course—keep the hope!” but there’s another voice that says “if it hasn’t
happened by now…will it ever?” I considered this
question head-on as I tucked the vision boards and goal lists safely away. I
decided it was time to face whether these goals were really coming to
fruition—if my progress was indeed moving forward or just circular.
I checked my blog stats and
the scale for the first time in months, numbers I normally try not to look at
but I also know represent reality. Despite my efforts to clean up my diet
lately, the number on the scale was exactly the same as where I was last year.
And, as could be expected, my blog numbers were down from my procrastination
around writing. Ahhh yes…confirmation, not in emotions or belief but in actual numbers, that I was indeed failing to meet goals I'd set
long ago.
I didn’t do what you might
expect--internalize that sense of failure and go eat a bunch of garbage or run
up my credit card or sabotage myself by going after the things I’d been
actively fighting against. But I did, on some level, check out. For the first time,
I didn't see the point in trying to make forward progress if I would only
eventually backslide. I decided this year I wouldn't sabotage or strive...just
be, well, goalless.
************************************
For three days I continued
to pour myself into the cleaning of every inch of my house, a pile of items to
purge getting bigger by the front door. I wasn’t necessarily feeling depressed
or hopeless, but a bit weary, like my heart was hardened a bit.
I needed something to listen
to as I continued to sort through and scrub my house and stumbled upon a
YouTube video of a speech given by the author Cheryl Strayed. She talked about
how she had once sat down to write the “great American novel” but found every
excuse not to do so—and that when she was finally given the perfect setting and
opportunity to actually DO what she’d always dreamed she would, she ended up
binge watching reality shows instead.
After much procrastination,
she finally had to face the idea that she was failing at achieving her dream.
She had to reckon with her own mediocrity and consider the idea that maybe her
dreams weren’t a worthwhile pursuit after all.
What she realized after
giving it some thought was that her dream of writing was TRUE and REAL—it was just that the goal of writing
the “great American novel” had been too big and felt too heavy. So, rather than
completely give up or swing in the other direction and try to achieve
GREATness, she decided to do something in between: to surrender to her mediocrity
and simply make good on her intentions.
She said, “when you surrender to your own mediocrity, what
you’re doing is humbly acknowledging that the very best thing you have to give
us is only what YOU have to offer.”
Hmm.
I wouldn’t go so far as to
say her words changed my life, but, again, things don’t have to be so darn BIG.
What her words did do was get me to open my laptop.
And, look, here I am writing
again.
Friends, I don’t have the
circumstances in place to try and write a book right now and I don’t know how
to turn 1,000 followers into the 100,000 that book agents are looking for, but
what I can do is share some words that speak to my heart when I’m willing to
let it crack open a little. That’s all I have to offer right now.
I don’t have the budget this
year to completely pay off my student loans AND mortgage AND credit cards, but
I can make my payments just a little bigger than the minimum and pay them on
time every. single. month. That is what I can afford to do right now.
I can’t speak for how I’ll
navigate my tricky relationship with sugar next month or next week or even
tomorrow, but I can make choices that feel good for my body today, one breath
and bite at a time. And I can move in some way each day, not for a number on
the scale, but for my health and because I just feel better when I do. All I
can commit to is the next right choice for my body, on this day.
*************************************
I guess it’s no longer true
that I don’t have goals for 2019 because I do have one: this year, I won’t try
and make myself or my life over. I won’t commit to things that feel too big or
too heavy. Instead, my goal this year is to surrender to my own
mediocrity...
to give only what I have to offer...
to make good on my intentions.
That I can do.
And, to answer my previous
question, yes…I do believe dreaming is a worthwhile endeavor—it keeps us
growing and retains our sense of hope. But the scope and scale of those dreams
is going to change year to year depending on our circumstances. If your career,
love life, and financial circumstances are thriving, you might be in a position
to pursue big, shiny, sparkly kinds of goals, and that’s terrific. That's the
juice we get during the up times of life that serves as fuel to keep going
during the down times, with hope that they'll come around again.
But I also know this: that
if everything was stripped from you this year and you could give a hoot about
big, sparkly dreams and you’re just trying to SURVIVE with the few things
you’ve got left—the types of things that can’t be taken from you when all else
is
like your will,
your faith,
and your tenacious love for
those weathering the storm alongside you...
real, gritty, salt of the
earth kinds of dreams rather than sparkly ones...
well, here’s the good news
I’d like to whisper into your heart, reminding you of what you already know:
in this year ahead, you'll be
okay...because these are the only things you ever really need anyway.
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