I’ve been playing myself.
Even the calender is laughing. Time itself, understands my desire to be more productive in 2011. It appears it’s understood this fact for many years.
And that’s why, in cahoots with my delusional tendencies, it has constructed ways for me…to play myself. Sometimes the blame game helps.
I have days of amazing productivity. And others that resemble early retirement….without the corona, the beach, or the passive income.
So… I had to get honest with what was getting in the way of productivity.
It was painful. It still is. But it’s been more painful ending another day, week, or month, wondering how half of what I had planed to do, didn’t actually get done.
So truth demanded that I ask myself some hard questions. Was that check-my-email mission, that turned into a facebook party, finally ending on some random youtube video about singing poodles – worth it?
The impromptu text, or phone call, that I just had to take or respond too. Was it worth the interruption?
Who, and what is really in control of my time?
It’s not that relationships don’t matter. But they have to matter in a way that respects what it is you are trying to accomplish.
RESPECT YO’ SELF
In the age of TV shrines, twitter, facebook, and smart phones, that can be a hard mirror to stare into.
It inspires the question: What is it that I truly want, and what is getting in the way?
For me…
It’s writing this blog more consistently, along with another book project I’ve been pretending to write.
It’s building online and offline spaces that champion asking questions, and exploring the deeper side of life.
It’s raising my consciousness of what I eat, and how it affects my health.
And ultimately, its growing as a critical thinker, creative, selfless being, and social hustler in the world.
It’s to this end that I must constantly evaluate how productive I truly am. That’s why I lean towards living a more simple life. After opting out of a suffocating home mortgage 2 years ago, I decided to also reduce my life possessions considerably. I went from a garage full of crap, to a few boxes of books, and a couple bags of clothes.
This moment of self righteousness soon fizzled into the realization that there are also less tangible objects of distraction in life. And some of them are actually “good” things.
“The enemy of right is good.” – {A random quote I heard somewhere.}
Right vs Good
Right is when you just need to pick up the pen and write. Good is when you instead, buy just one more book about how to become a better writer.
Good are all the great things we think up that end up being the next best thing to doing the thing we need to do. That was a mouthful I know.
After that sense of control, and pseudo accomplishment wears off, we are left with the actual thing we need to do.
It is here we corner the culprit of self sabotage. The slippery truth that reveals – Sometimes we just do not want ourselves to succeed.
The truth is:
- Planning is not doing.
- Talking about what you’d like to do is not doing
- Deciding is not doing
- Only doing is doing. Trust me…I’ve tried to find the sexy alternative.
Even when everything isn’t perfectly planned out! If we dare to take a look at our life, the truth is in how we spend our money, and time. What matters most to us, is not what we say matters most, but how we actually live what matters.
“Time will either promote you or expose you…”
Written by Veron Graham
Topics: Blog