10 days and 10 chapters into the process I finally think I am starting to get my shit together. It is about deciding to live a life worth living. I think somewhere in the darkest recesses of my irony driven psyche I am still convinced that the moment I completely have it together I am going to drop dead–never having enjoyed being on the top of my game. Morbid, I know, but I gotta go sometime (sadly), and I might as well go out on top.
So, what does it take to get there? Dedication, focus, less stuff to do? All of that helps, but I think the key for me is manageable tasks that build towards a goal. I always take it back to Steinback who wrote, “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.” So I write 1000 words and then another. I find the kernel of a thing and build from that. In coaching I learn one skill and then another, knowing that they all come together to form a matrix; knowing that all the words coalesce into a story.
Another part of it is sleep. I actually get some. Not enough, mind you. There are multiple days in a week where I’m not with my partner and thus have no reason to retire and instead lie there consuming bad TV and playing Apex Legends long into the night. On a whole though, I’m doing pretty good with the sleep cycle.
I’m also doing much better with delegating. I used to feel responsible for everything. I used to manage all the housework. Now I manage far less at one location, and conversely far less than I should at the other (I am fixing that part posthaste).
The key I see when I consider all of these things is the concept of balance and manageable tasks. I’m old. I can’t write a novel in two weeks like I did in college. I can’t stay up for three days like I did in high school. Those moments and actions shaped me into who I am, but they also set false expectations of what I can achieve in ‘normal’ mode.
So, if you’re reading this then you ought to take away one thing: Set small goals that you can manage and that build towards a larger ideal. Do enough of these things in the areas of your life that are important and don’t overdo it.