Current Tunes: Pearl Jam - The Fixer
So one dropped-out-of-class and one visit to the bursar later, and I feel significantly more myself than I did the last time I talked with you all. Less stress and more economic freedom makes for a fantastic combination, I must say. Now I can concentrate on more pressing matters like thesis work and job hunting.
Easiest way to explain how different today is compared to Monday would be to talk about what’s coming up for me this afternoon. I’m headed up to the school this afternoon to finish up some class work for today, and I’m actually moderately looking forward to it. Which is no small happening, considering how difficult this class will be for me, I think. I’m actually having to go to extra tutoring sessions on Fridays, to get help with learning InDesign so I can design this little book project of mine. It’s exciting, getting to learn something I know almost nothing about and have no skill regarding the primary process of it all.
Who says fighting is something negative? I’ve finally put something together about myself. I’m adversarial, wouldn’t you agree? Think about how contrary and argumentative I am most times. I think I finally figured out why I’m that way; because it’s a struggle, and there’s nothing like a good struggle to let you know you’re still alive. Conflict is what makes the world go ‘round, not love. Hell, you could make a pretty concrete argument that love is a conflict. Who was it that said love is a battlefield? Oh yeah, Pat Benatar. Well, not as compelling as Descartes or Pope, but it still gets the point across. No offense to you, Mrs. Benatar.
If I try to articulate why it is that I love the feel and the emotion of the struggle and the fight, it’s hard not to get caught in the undertow of it all. Fighting isn’t always violence and destruction; that’s a distinction I think people don’t always realize, and even I fall into that faulty logic from time to time. I’m going to do my best to stay out of it though. We struggle because we must. We fight because it is the path to greatness, achievement, progress and even hopefulness, sometimes.
Haven’t really meant for posts to focus so exclusively on personal observations and problems, but there hasn’t been much room for going to movies lately. New shows have started; both “Sons of Anarchy” and “House” are off to rolling starts, but I’m still evaluating them on a larger scale that will take another week or so. Hopefully this weekend, though, I’ll get out to the theater to see “Zombieland” and report back with a riveting review. Promise.
30 September 2009
28 September 2009
Failure and Success
Current Tunes: Cowboys & Panthers (Panteras!) on Monday Night Football
So here’s my synopsis for the day. Here is how today was different.
1.) I said something that needed to be said today. I made the conscious decision to make a calculated, reasoned risk that yielded not the exact result I had envisioned, but indeed a better one. Overall, I felt good about it.
2.) I did laundry. Without specifically needing to. I could have likely gone another week or more without actually doing laundry, but I did.
3.) Not only did I continue my “mini-habits” routine this morning, I worked out for half an hour today. What a horrible half hour. It completely beat me, but I went the whole half hour even though I wanted to quit. A key lesson to remember.
4.) I woke up before the alarm that I set. Before. By an hour and a half. I’m tired now, have been all day (I’m sure working out only added to this). I could have gone back to sleep, but I made myself get up out of bed and the confidence I gained from that can’t be explained in words.
One last thing that made today different was interesting, insightful. I took a few t-shirts of mine (I have many) and set aside a few and cut the sleeves off a few of them, making a few sleeveless t-shirts to wear around the apartment. Sleeveless t’s are one of my greatest loves, something I didn’t discover until a year or so ago. So comfy...
Anyway, I only did this to four shirts. Only four. I could have done it to about ten more; I really only need ten or so real t-shirts for wearing out in public. The thought occurred to me that I mostly don’t want to do it because of my horribly unstoppable conservative streak. I want to conserve and preserve my shirts as they are, I can’t let them change. And for the silliest reasons. “Oh, I can’t cut up that shirt, I had such a good time at that fest,” or “I remember how I got that shirt, changing it would be like changing a memory.” Silly little rationales that fall short of the ideal definitions of fact and law. Maybe after I’m done with this, I’ll do one more.
All this today, and I still have an assignment due tomorrow and no idea what I’m going to turn in. On the surface, it’s not a difficult or complicated assignment at all. It just requires a good amount of creativity and of late I haven’t felt creative at all.
But the problem is bigger than that. I’m ashamed to turn in something for an assignment that I’m not proud of, something that I think is garbage. I think though, that may be something I need to teach myself to do. What ends up happening, I get so nervous and worried (worried is an important word here) about what’s required of me for the class and that I won’t meet the expectations of the teacher. So instead of just simply doing and/or trying, I just say to myself that to not do it at all would be the better choice. Which of course obviously it’s not. I had it really ingrained in me that everything always had to be your best, always. Not “as often as you can,” but always, every single time. I have to accept that there are some things I will not be the best at, that I will fail at. I will have to accept humility and go about life and not let it get the best of me.
My foolish self, I should remember how last quarter I stressed and stressed and worried and worried about my final paper in a class. I churned out a ridiculous, half-ass paper (by my standards anyway) and made I think an 88 on it. Maybe even higher than that. The point is, and J was there listening to me bitch constantly, I defeated myself before I had even started. I might be doing that with this assignment, unfortunately. I can foresee myself justifying the idea of just waking up early in the morning and starting to work on it immediately, AKA procrastination of the most unnecessary kind.
Perhaps all I need to do is accomplish even a small amount of work before I hit the hay tonight. Anything that can be a sign of progress.
So here’s my synopsis for the day. Here is how today was different.
1.) I said something that needed to be said today. I made the conscious decision to make a calculated, reasoned risk that yielded not the exact result I had envisioned, but indeed a better one. Overall, I felt good about it.
2.) I did laundry. Without specifically needing to. I could have likely gone another week or more without actually doing laundry, but I did.
3.) Not only did I continue my “mini-habits” routine this morning, I worked out for half an hour today. What a horrible half hour. It completely beat me, but I went the whole half hour even though I wanted to quit. A key lesson to remember.
4.) I woke up before the alarm that I set. Before. By an hour and a half. I’m tired now, have been all day (I’m sure working out only added to this). I could have gone back to sleep, but I made myself get up out of bed and the confidence I gained from that can’t be explained in words.
One last thing that made today different was interesting, insightful. I took a few t-shirts of mine (I have many) and set aside a few and cut the sleeves off a few of them, making a few sleeveless t-shirts to wear around the apartment. Sleeveless t’s are one of my greatest loves, something I didn’t discover until a year or so ago. So comfy...
Anyway, I only did this to four shirts. Only four. I could have done it to about ten more; I really only need ten or so real t-shirts for wearing out in public. The thought occurred to me that I mostly don’t want to do it because of my horribly unstoppable conservative streak. I want to conserve and preserve my shirts as they are, I can’t let them change. And for the silliest reasons. “Oh, I can’t cut up that shirt, I had such a good time at that fest,” or “I remember how I got that shirt, changing it would be like changing a memory.” Silly little rationales that fall short of the ideal definitions of fact and law. Maybe after I’m done with this, I’ll do one more.
All this today, and I still have an assignment due tomorrow and no idea what I’m going to turn in. On the surface, it’s not a difficult or complicated assignment at all. It just requires a good amount of creativity and of late I haven’t felt creative at all.
But the problem is bigger than that. I’m ashamed to turn in something for an assignment that I’m not proud of, something that I think is garbage. I think though, that may be something I need to teach myself to do. What ends up happening, I get so nervous and worried (worried is an important word here) about what’s required of me for the class and that I won’t meet the expectations of the teacher. So instead of just simply doing and/or trying, I just say to myself that to not do it at all would be the better choice. Which of course obviously it’s not. I had it really ingrained in me that everything always had to be your best, always. Not “as often as you can,” but always, every single time. I have to accept that there are some things I will not be the best at, that I will fail at. I will have to accept humility and go about life and not let it get the best of me.
My foolish self, I should remember how last quarter I stressed and stressed and worried and worried about my final paper in a class. I churned out a ridiculous, half-ass paper (by my standards anyway) and made I think an 88 on it. Maybe even higher than that. The point is, and J was there listening to me bitch constantly, I defeated myself before I had even started. I might be doing that with this assignment, unfortunately. I can foresee myself justifying the idea of just waking up early in the morning and starting to work on it immediately, AKA procrastination of the most unnecessary kind.
Perhaps all I need to do is accomplish even a small amount of work before I hit the hay tonight. Anything that can be a sign of progress.
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