 |
| Image from designboom. |
There is no guarantee that one will reach any of one's goals in this
life. But not to struggle toward those goals is to guarantee that they
won't be attained. - Reginald Shepherd (from his essay Why I Write)
I cannot even count how many times in a day I give up from the goals that I set out. Every day, it goes like this:
GOAL: Wake up early - hand, meet snooze button.
GOAL: Do the work first - mind, do stop by and read every article suggestion you find online.
GOAL: Exercise - well, it's raining, and you're still sick.
GOAL: Eat healthy - well, I feel so bad for not doing anything that's on my list that I think I deserve a little treat. Or, a lot of little treats.
GOAL: Don't waste your day doing something ridiculously stupid, like nothing: oh, do nothing? Well that's a lovely suggestion.
For some reason, there is always that sense of exhaustion that sets in, even though I haven't really done much of anything. It's like I am exhausted from failing to try. "Why bother?" my evil self coaxes me. "Come lay here, indulge in bad TV, you deserve it," it says. The short of it is that I often give up without even trying. I am so afraid of making a mistake that I often end up reasoning to myself that only when the conditions are idea is it a great time to try. But the lesson that I must keep on relearning is that there are no perfect conditions. I have to accept that I must step out of my comfort zone if I am to find out how capable I truly am. And the first step out of that comfort zone is to be okay with trying even when all my other efforts have gone to hell. Even when I've failed at one or all of the things on my list.
With all this self-analyzing, I seem to have had a breakthrough. It occurs to me now that I punish myself for trying (and failing) and reward myself when I do not try. I cringe and relive the humiliation instead of stopping to see what lesson I should be learning from the experience.
This is not by any means an eloquent post, but more of me writing to make sense of why I do what I do. I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot hold out for perfect conditions. It seems I have to create them from all the unfortunate ones. But really, here is what I learned from everything I said about trying today. To try is to believe that your dream is within your reach. If you're not trying, what are you still doing there?
What are you trying to do?
GOAL: Wake up early - hand, meet snooze button.
GOAL: Do the work first - mind, do stop by and read every article suggestion you find online.
GOAL: Exercise - well, it's raining, and you're still sick.
GOAL: Eat healthy - well, I feel so bad for not doing anything that's on my list that I think I deserve a little treat. Or, a lot of little treats.
GOAL: Don't waste your day doing something ridiculously stupid, like nothing: oh, do nothing? Well that's a lovely suggestion.
For some reason, there is always that sense of exhaustion that sets in, even though I haven't really done much of anything. It's like I am exhausted from failing to try. "Why bother?" my evil self coaxes me. "Come lay here, indulge in bad TV, you deserve it," it says. The short of it is that I often give up without even trying. I am so afraid of making a mistake that I often end up reasoning to myself that only when the conditions are idea is it a great time to try. But the lesson that I must keep on relearning is that there are no perfect conditions. I have to accept that I must step out of my comfort zone if I am to find out how capable I truly am. And the first step out of that comfort zone is to be okay with trying even when all my other efforts have gone to hell. Even when I've failed at one or all of the things on my list.
With all this self-analyzing, I seem to have had a breakthrough. It occurs to me now that I punish myself for trying (and failing) and reward myself when I do not try. I cringe and relive the humiliation instead of stopping to see what lesson I should be learning from the experience.
This is not by any means an eloquent post, but more of me writing to make sense of why I do what I do. I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot hold out for perfect conditions. It seems I have to create them from all the unfortunate ones. But really, here is what I learned from everything I said about trying today. To try is to believe that your dream is within your reach. If you're not trying, what are you still doing there?
What are you trying to do?
No comments:
Post a Comment