Friday, July 25, 2008

your very first day...

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
- George Bernard Shaw


You know what it's like: You say you're going to do something, but you don't do it, and then when you remember there was something you were supposed to do, you tell yourself you'll have to look into doing it, but then you still don't do it, because you're doing other things that probably don't get you half as excited as that thing that you keep telling yourself you should do, you want to do, you will do, and yet that you never do.

Sound familiar? I thought so.

When you live a busy life, as I know we all do, procrastination and frustration reign supreme, unless you can get yourself out of that circle. I, for instance, get a lot done, but as an ever-busy person and, worse, a writer suffering from publishing anxiety, I know there's so much more that should be getting done that isn't. And being a perfectionist (yes, I'm a Virgo, for you zodiac sign believers out there) doesn't help.

But I've been working very hard on stifling this tendency for the past year or so, and I think I've been making some serious progress. Like my drawers, for instance, I kept saying I was going to reorganize them this past month, but I never did, and finally, the other night, I did - all of them. Sure, this might have been a convenient way to get out of revising the next chapter of my book, but hey, reorganizing clothes never hurts =P A minor example, but if I gave you others, more important, meaningful ones, we'd be here all day.

So why am I telling you? Because I still see everyone doing it and have come to the conclusion that much of people's unhappiness stems from people's unwillingness to just get it done and fear of not doing it right. Sure, I haven't discovered fire here, but still, really think about it for a moment. It might sound like common sense, and it really is, but when you reflect on it, realize how little and insignificant a habit it is that keeps us from achieving things, and you'll want to get up and go book that trip, start that company, make yourself that sandwich, get yourself to the beach, take that walk - whatever it is you're telling yourself right now you want to do.

And it's not easy. It shouldn't be easy. Sometimes I'll sit at my computer bemoaning the time and agony it takes to get the plot moving (FYI, took me three hours to revise my Chapter 2 last week...but I did it), and I find myself writing slower, with less attention, with more distractions, with motivation quickly draining. But if it was easy, then I would've published a book years ago. Everyone would've published books years ago. And I wouldn't be happy. I'd be restless, trying to find something more challenging, something that asks more of me.

Take, for instance, the fact that Alex and I have an Adventure Race coming up in Allamuchy, NJ. I find myself worrying every now and then that it won't be easy, and we might get lost, and I might get tired, and we might suffer from heat exhaustion, and our sandwiches might get soggy, and I might have to go to the bathroom as soon as we're in the forest - probably when we're lost and too nervous to think about the bathroom - and I might fall off my bike going up a mountain, and I might tip over in the kayak while I'm thinking about falling off my bike...see, now even you're worried.

But then I have to remind myself (and sometimes it's hard) that I haven't been training and running and biking and kayaking and lifting weights and working on my endurance and going to an all-day Adventure Race prep course because it's going to be easy. No, I've been going because I'm going to attempt something ridiculous and fun and possibly painful and definitely memorable. So it won't be easy. But I know that. So why worry? When I'm just fretting over the obvious.

I guess what prompted me to write this was two articles I recently read. One, I read today, about Randy Pausch, the professor from Carnegie Mellon University who delivered the now-internet famous "Last Lecture" (and title of the best-selling book), about achieving your childhood dreams, in September 2007, a month after being told he had only a few months to live because his pancreatic cancer had returned. He died today, almost one year later.

I saw him on Oprah (yes, sometimes I watch) once, and he was pretty extraordinary. Basically, he said that he knew he was going to die, from one of the most painful cancers out there, but knowing that wasn't going to stop him from loving life for himself, his friends, and his family. If anything, he was going to do it one thousand times more. I must admit, some of his methods were a little extreme, like pouring a can of soda on the backseat of his brand new convertible to prove to his nephew and niece that they didn't have to worry about dirtying it. Material things are not important when it comes to people. Lo and behold, I think the story goes, the nephew got carsick at some point later on, threw up on the backseat, and happily realized that his uncle wasn't going to throw him out on the highway.

But ultimately, the book, his mantra, the lectures, his ideas, they were all meant to be, most importantly to him, life lessons he could leave for his wife and children. So he left behind a legacy of just getting out there and doing it with a lot of fun and little to no worry.

The second article I read several days ago was about 112-year old Frank Calloway, an Alabama man who has spent more than 50 years in the mental health system. In the '80s he started drawing, and now he is a prolific painter who creates images out of another time and place, visions of his youth. Last year, the article says, he took a trip to Alabama's Gulf Coast, and soon afterward, he decided he was going to draw pictures of boats, but rather than drawing the modern boats he'd seen, he produced riverboats with paddlewheels, the kind Mark Twain would have written about. Not much is officially known about his life prior to entering the mental health system, that is, except for what he tells people...and what he draws. When he isn't hard at work, he enjoys talking to people who ask questions.

As for all of his paintings, they're going to be worth a lot, and this fall they will be on exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Calloway plans to attend the opening - it will be his first time on a plane...at 112 years old. So think about that the next time you say you're too old to do something or it's too late to start something.

I know a lot of people say live every day like it's your last, but I'm not crazy about that. I would probably -regardless of all the positive thinking in the world - be a nervous wreck if I found out it was the very last day (not quite like Pausch, who had some of the most amazing months of his life left).

Instead, I say, live every day like it's your first, with all the awe and wonder and smiles you had when it really was your very first day. When everything was new and awesome, and your thoughts and dreams were all experience- and reality check-free. Experience is what you choose to take out of life. Reality is what you make of it.

Live like you're just starting and like you've suddenly realized, for the very first time, that there's something you'd love to do...right now.

Monday, July 7, 2008

a flicker, then a flame

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
- Robert Frost

It's taken some time, but dammit, I've done it. Chapter 1 has officially been revised, submitted to my writing group, and (breathe) given a markedly positive assessment.

From the revision, which actually didn't take much time at all once I actually forced myself to sit down and do it, more ideas, more characterization, more plot points, more specifics, and more notes to address have emerged, and it's all so very awesome. It's tangible.

My goal by the end of the week is to have revised Chapters 2 and 3 and have an extensive outline for Chapters 6 - 10. Ugh - which will of course mean I have to start rereading the 100+ pages I've already written, including the parts where I was half asleep and managed to tactfully maneuver my way around gaping plot holes. Yeah, that's gonna be fun to decipher.

So yes, thank you all for not inviting me to any movies, parties, or hanging out time in the last week since my my most recent post. Keep up the great let's-all-help-Melissa-stop-procrastinating work!!

That is what you're doing, right?

Right?

Guys??