Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Just as I feared...

I put off starting a blog, hoping to achieve a level of balance in the other areas of my life that would assure being able to write well and often. I obviously started it too soon. I'm still paddling as fast as I can, though, and I still have visions of posting at least almost every day.

I thought that when I no longer worked at a full-time job, life would suddenly be filled with clean laundry, well-stocked cupboards, home-cooked meals, shiny floors and finished projects. Since that hasn't exactly been the case, it's obvious that my job wasn't the only thing screwing with my schedule.

I hadn't envisioned the bad knees, depression and other health issues that would finally lead to my joblessness. I had thought that my energy, undrained by the stresses of balancing career and home life, would be absolutely boundless. After all, I don't even have kids!

I recently heard two things that gave me pause and will, hopefully, inspire deeper thought and more action as I continue along this path. The first was that every time you put something off, you mortgage a part of your future. Isn't that a sobering thought?

The second thing I heard really got my attention. I've long struggled with the issue that we all refer to as "time management." Well, it was pointed out to me that there is no such thing. (What?!?) Time pretty much just rolls along and we can no more manage it than we can manage the tides or the weather. Instead, we have to manage our own actions and what we do in the time we have.

Well! As my husband would say, "What a pisser!" You mean my go-to excuse for all my woes doesn't work anymore? Instead of a guiltless inability to manage some little-understood concept based on physical laws that guide the planet and the sun and the rest of the universe, this is all my fault?!? Now what?

Achieving a state of grace is still my goal. There are so many things that I want to be different. I have to get busy. I have to exert more control. I have to take better care of myself. I have to find more energy. I have to exert more self-discipline. I have to do better than I'm doing now. I have to keep trying.

So, I will keep reading and listening and seeking and changing. The beat goes on...