I often wish that I could teach people not to sweat the small stuff. I can’t stand watching people walk around with their minds so focused on trivial matters, that they’re unable to see the big picture.
So what if that guy just stole your parking spot? At least you didn’t have to take the bus with all your children, your strollers, and bags of groceries once you’re finished shopping. What’s the problem with getting the blue ipod when you wanted the black one? At least you have one. How does it matter that you listened to someone at the next table complain about their food? Did you enjoy yours? Then stop eavesdropping!
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not really the complaining that bothers me. If that was the problem, I would be just as bad as they are. It’s the fact that small things stress a lot of people out. Getting one’s blood pressure up, in my opinion, had better come with a whole lot of real problems. Yes, all the little ones can add up. We all have days like that. But even then, don’t dwell! It’ll put you into an early grave… and who wants to die over a chipped fingernail?
I think we all have something that we’ve learned from experience, that we wish we could give the benefit of to others so that they don’t have to learn the way we did: the hard way.
So tell me in the comments: of all your personal life lessons, what would you teach the people around you, if you could?
There are worse things in the world than getting motivation from a fortune cookie, I suppose. But then, I think I can win the lottery. Will I? I guess I can if I buy a ticket.
While the statement on this tiny slip of paper is true, to a certain extent, it’s vague at best. Where is the trying? What do we get out of life if we just sit and imagine we can, without making an attempt? We get nothing, most of the time.
Case in point: I think I can make something out of this post. Am I giving it a half-hearted effort? Yes. Was I motivated by the piece of paper I found in a fortune cookie? Yes.
All this to say that, just because you think you can, doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at it. And there’s my de-motivational post for the day.
Chew on it.
Okay, but seriously. To be creative–to create something out of my own mind that is brand new–I have to be in the right frame of mind. No amount of external motivation is going to change that. It may help, but in the end nothing is going to inspire me quite like, well, me. When that spark fires in my brain that tells me I have something to write about, or I fall on something I’m passionate about, it’s like I’m a ball of energy, rolling down a hill, unable to stop. I can zing through a paragraph as though I was propelled by an elastic band, my fingers flying around the keyboard, unable to keep up with my brain. That’s when I would say to myself, “Yes I can!” except that I’m too busy creating to think such a thing.
So is the fortune cookie wrong? Personally, I think it’s possible to think too much.
“…keep your mind gently ’round the subject you’re pondering.” ~ John Cleese.
This quote is profound, in my opinion, because it’s something I can wholeheartedly relate to. I spent more time playing Candy Crush on Facebook while I was writing my last NaNoWriMo project than perhaps I spent writing. I stopped to play every time I ran out of words, and each time I came to a wall in my story. The real beauty of Candy Crush is that, once I ran out of lives, I had to wait up to thirty minutes before I could play again. I used this forced break in the game to make myself go back to my story. Yet I couldn’t decide why exactly I needed the game. Mr. Cleese, in the video I posted yesterday, explains it.
He says, (and I paraphrase) that when you ponder a problem, allowing your mind to “rest[ing] against the subject, in a friendly but persistent manner,” your sub-conscious will reward you with a creative solution.
If you listen to music when you write; if you find yourself wandering to the fridge, or doing housework – anything that you consider procrastinating, is this not what you’re doing? How many times have you been performing some mundane task when the perfect solution came to you from out of the blue? It’s that “aha” moment which Oprah went on about, way back when, and what it is, is creativity hard at work when you least expect it.
The video I posted yesterday here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/creativity/ is thirty-six minutes that you won’t regret taking the time to watch, whether you’re a writer of fiction, poetry or blogs. If you can’t watch it right away, I strongly suggest you bookmark it.
Have you ever considered that, when you started your blog you created a world for others to visit? You gave it an atmosphere with your chosen theme, with your words and your pictures you provide it with a feeling – is it like coming home? Or does it give the sensation of exploring a strange planet? Is it exotic, or down-to-earth? Has it changed since you began?
I started my blog, naively perhaps, with the intention to showcase my work for potential employers. I was going to write only long, well-thought-out articles and people would visit and “like” my posts and comment with words like, “Nice article,” or “Good job.” At first I hung on every click of the like button, and sponged up the positive feedback like it was a clear spring in the middle of the desert. In short, I had no clue what a blog could be.
It took me a while, but I started to make friends of the visitors to what I thought of as my little room. I found out that, even better than “likes” and faint praise, there could be actual discussion in them thar comment boxes. The “Nice work!”s transmuted from overgrown paths leading into my blog to highways full of people who related to what I was saying. And as they came back again and again, and we got to know each other, my room expanded. It evolved. It became a world.
With the expansion of my world, so too have my ideals. I appreciate this community so much that I want others to share in it. Rather than long, dry articles, I revel in the fact that I’m able to help people connect through their relatable experiences. I realised the potential that WordPress holds when I joined Dylan Dailey for “Every Damn Day December,” where I discovered how pingbacks work and how participating in a prompt can aid in the discovery of other bloggers – and in being discovered.
I launched “Just Jot it January” in a bid to keep the connections going between other bloggers, and I recently started “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” (SoCS) in order to keep the ball rolling.
It seems the more I perpetuate these connections, the more my blog evolves. A comment regarding the crappy little posts that I’ve been writing of late which seem more to bring in “likes” and less content, caused me to examine my reasons for blogging. Sure, I’ve given up the lofty goal of always writing awesome posts – but in doing so I’ve come to do what is more authentically me, and part of my nature, and that is to help people. I’ve realised in the last year that I don’t have the ability to write, much less come up with, long yet entertaining articles on a daily basis. I’m a novelist. For now, that’s what I want to concentrate on. That’s not to say my crappy little posts aren’t beneficial to me – I pay attention to views to see which opening lines get people’s attention, which is something I’ve been advised is essential to selling a novel.
By writing short posts that encourage involvement from my audience, I hope people are discovering one another. All they have to do is look around themselves in my comments – a warm, caring community is that close.
Welcome to my world. Feel free, anytime, to talk amongst yourselves here.
What are you striving for? Is it within your reach? Yes? Then go for it. You want to lose weight? Stop eating cupcakes. You want to write a novel? Get off Facebook and Twitter and spend more time writing. You want a better job? Make more of an effort to get one than bitching about the one you have.
Is what you want not within your reach? Then stop spending so much energy wanting it. You want to be taller? Too bad. You want to live on a yacht the size of an apartment building but you’re on welfare because you’re too lazy to work? Give it up. You want to be younger? Ain’t gonna happen.
I’m so tired of listening to people complain, who aren’t able to either live up to or define their limitations.
How did we end up being a society of whiners? Is it Facebook and that tempting sweet spot–the box asking us, “What’s on your mind?”–that taunts us to write whatever we’re thinking and share it with the world? Is it the message, “You can be anything you want to be,” that’s expanded people’s heads so that they barely fit on their pillows? “Dream big!” they say.
“Wake up!” I say.
Enjoy the life you are cut out for. Know your limitations! You’ll be much happier.
Kicking and screaming is how they’re going to have to pry my cell phone out of my cold dead hand.
Okay, not really. But seriously, I’m not sure I could live without my cell phone. But it’s not only me, either.
Consider this: When I was young (a teenager) I used to go out with my friends. (Of course.) I’d have a curfew and my mother would be sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to come home. She made sure I had a dime in case I needed to call. I’m sure she must have sat by the phone as well.
Now (these days), when my son went out (he’s moved out now) I’d not have to sit by the phone – it would be in my pocket. He didn’t need a dime – he had a cell. I knew that at any given moment he could call me without needing to look for a payphone.
How did our parents survive back then? I’d be worried poo-less!
I can’t imagine having to go through all that waiting, and wondering, and worrying about my kids. I don’t worry as much about my own safety now either.
I suppose it prepared my mother for when I went to Japan by myself – I didn’t have a cell phone then. But in Japan I felt very safe.
Anyway, I’m starting to ramble. That’s what SoCS is all about though.
What do you think? Could you live without a cell phone? Would you let your kids out of the house at night without one?
Do you remember how you felt when you started on WordPress? If you’re fairly new here, I would imagine it’s pretty fresh in your mind. Even I consider myself a bit of a newb, but after just a little more than a year I’ve come to feel comfortable here; I’ve found a great community, some wonderful friends, and plenty of people who I can joke around with.
What stands out most in my mind from when I started, however, is how intimidated I felt when I stumbled across a popular blog and I wanted to comment. Should I? They seem like such a tight bunch of people, bantering about things they’ve learned about one another…
So I was considering this, and I wondered if people who are just starting out feel that way when they stop by to read my blog.
In light of my pondering, I decided to change my comment box prompt from “Leave a comment” to what it is now.
How do you make newcomers feel welcome? How do you encourage them to join in the discussion?
Child abuse is a subject that keeps coming up around me of late, and not only because I’ve recently re-released my semi-biographical story, “Boy Series – One through…” A few minutes ago a glimpsed on Facebook a photo which made me want to throw up. I refuse to describe it – it’s one of those things that once seen cannot be unseen, and I’m sure I will have nightmares because of it. It’s worse in my mind than anything I could have imagined by myself, and in many ways, so is my series.
I’ve made the decision for a few reasons, to reveal the man behind the story. It’s not a big secret, and I don’t claim to be the one-and-only person to know… but I think having all the information that I’ve researched in one place will make the true story that much more interesting. I’ve been working, therefore, to compile links to interviews and decide what of his work might be most relevant to the story of his life. Strangely, something he said in one of the interviews I read last night cemented the decision in my mind to do this – it was almost as though I received a sign to say that it’s okay to go ahead.
The excerpt from the interview spoke of a song that he wrote about the tragedy of war. He has written several. He said that, (paraphrased) although there is little we can do about it, just spreading awareness that it exists and what it is like for those who are a part of it, whether it is their own decision to be or not, might cause someone to act differently.
And so I believe it is the same for my story of abuse. The more we are aware that it happens, even in our own neighbourhoods, the more we may look for the signs. Though we may not be able to help all of the children everywhere who suffer, if we can be kind to a child who we think may be abused, it might mean the world to that one child.
To Nav, John, Willow, and to all the people who had a hard time reading my series, I thank you for your perseverance. It was as heartbreaking to write as it is to read, just as it was for me to hear of it originally. I hope you’ll all stick around to learn the truth; to see that the man who was the boy has done well for himself despite the odds, even though he still bears the scars of his own, wretched war.
Greater, more successful writers than myself (not a stretch) state that in order to be a writer one must dedicate one’s effort into writing: a writer must write. Here lies my conundrum.
I have no qualms over calling myself a writer. It’s what I do constantly – if I’m not physically typing on a keyboard or writing little notes, I’m composing something in my head with hopes that I’ll remember it.
But being a single mom, 80% responsible for two kids (meaning that I get to sleep 15% of the time and the other 5% is when their dad takes care of them) and having to be always within calling distance of my own mother, I don’t have time to write. What might take me three months more of full-time editing on my novel to render it publishable is, at the rate I’m going, bound to take me three years. Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe it.
I imagine there is, somewhere in the universe, a switch that can be flicked which could cause me to be able to stop merely calling myself a writer and become one. I realize that I cannot expect to ever take on a full-time job; my life is with my children, and taking care of them is apparently my job and mine alone. Would I want it any other way? Absolutely not.
Yet writing is also my life. I don’t live for my children – anyone who says they do, in my opinion, is in for a huge let-down when their kids leave home for good. I live for myself and I am a writer. I have a story that I feel needs to be told, of a world where I hope one day people will be able to escape, as I have. It’s inside me, it’s on my screen and it’s on paper, and all it wants is to be polished to a bright, shiny tale that many will love.
If only the magical switch to make it all come true wasn’t so far out of my reach.
Whilst searching for inspiration for this post today I decided to check out Freshly Pressed. I thought, before opening the page that I would write about the first tag that came up. Surely I have an opinion on just about any subject there could possibly be to write about, don’t I?
The first tag was “Books.” What a broad subject, eh?
I could write about the state of out-of-date textbooks in schools, or the price of the one I had to buy (used) when I took my short story course. It was the size of something I wouldn’t pay more than $20 for in a book store, and yet it cost me almost $100 because it was compiled by a bunch of professors.
I’ve written a few times on the importance of editing work in these days of anyone being able to become a published author, and I’ve written about books I’ve liked and not. Right now I’m reading A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and, while it was a bit difficult to get into because of the sheer number of characters, I’m about half-way through and enjoying it. It took me a good 33% of the book to retain the information that went with all the characters’ names, however.
You know what I hate? Not being able to put a page number on anything anymore. It’s all percentages when you’re reading an e-book. I think that’s what I miss most about reading a physical book. Knowing where the bookmark goes without a digital device advising me.
So that’s my stream of consciousness post for this week. My experience with books of late. Why do I have to put everything in a box? I blame it on WordPress and the damned tags. 😛
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