Prior to today, I have written blog posts for two-hundred and eight-nine days in a row (!). As you can imagine, I have been in many different spaces personally over this time. Some days I have been calm, excited and/or eager about writing. Those days, I often have an idea that I really enjoy writing about, a readiness to do the work, and the time to work it out to my satisfaction. In fact, a few of my posts (such as my “Liar’s Poker” post, and my Walden posts) were constructed with the care of a well-thought out book report or college essay. I enjoyed writing these posts immensely.
Other posts, however, have not been so easy to write or dedicate time to. Sometimes I just had to “get ‘er done.” In those cases, generally I took less time on the post. Although I have taken as long as probably three hours to finish a post (my average is probably 20-30 minutes), I have also taken as little as about eight minutes.
The really short posts have been short for one of two reasons: either I just didn’t have much time, or, I just wasn’t in a frame of mind to really do much good thinking. There have been numerous days when I was distracted or distraught, yet I “forced” myself to do it anyway.
In fact, this is one of the benefits of this blogging project: rain or shine, I show up to work. Over the past two-hundred and ninety days, it’s been really good for me to show myself this level of consistency. It is a victory over a crazy mind 🙂 Yet some of those days, it was honestly not that enjoyable to write a post. At it’s worst, there are a couple days where I just shared some old poem I had written previously (this is a tell that I was just not feeling up to writing something that day!).
One case in point: over this past weekend, I definitely felt distracted by other things going on in my life. Fittingly, over that time I wrote posts on the following topics: guarding my happiness, clearing one’s mind of self-judgment, and a poetic depiction of the mind as a vapor or apparition that tries to trick me into acting out its drama. I also did an entire post of “channelled” insight about how to choose your focus when your mood is off target.
Over this time, I was quite distraught about something I was thinking over, so I didn’t feel “up” to the challenge of a lengthy blog post. So what did I do? I got ‘er done! One way I have done this is by resorting to the “channeling” approach I mentioned above. For this, I clear my mind and let “My Higher Self” just talk instead. This has worked very well, because it has helped me come from a clear and more positive place. In practical terms, it has also helped me get ‘er done on days when I was not in a great headspace!
It’s interesting, the variety of states that one will be in over the course of a year! The blog is sort of an on-going snapshot of all those states: from excited to dismal, I have been everywhere, yet I show up to work with a commitment to say something of use, hopefully inspired. I always put my blogging hat on.
It’s a good thing it’s a sturdy, construction workers hat, because this thing has had to withstand just about everything: falling rocks, sticks, flying animals… including occasional assaults from the worst creature in the animal kingdom: The Monkey Mind.
Happily, the fact that I have successfully blogged for now two-hundred and ninety consecutive days suggests that I’m winning the war against it 🙂
Me: 290 Monkey Mind: 0
Yee haw!