Inertia is a hard thing to overcome. Newton's first law says that a body at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by a force. I'm not quite talking about physics, though. Human inertia is probably harder to overcome than physical inertia.
We get into habits, and continue them day after day, but the habits we have aren't always what are best for us. They don't necessarily lead us toward fulfilling our goals and desires. Sometimes, they're slowly (or even quickly) destroying us, yet, even with that knowledge, we still often continue them.
For example, my eating habits. I was quickly moving towards disability and death a few months ago. I wasn't taking care of my body. I was putting gobs and gobs of the worst possible stuff in my mouth and I was dying slowly. Of course, as the saying goes (I believe they're talking about bankruptcy, but I think it applies to most things), it happens slowly, and then all at once.
I knew I needed to change, but I didn't. I remained at rest. I remained traveling in that straight line, because I couldn't summon a force to act upon me. But, in the end, I finally found motivation to change, and now it's been almost three full months that I've been headed in the right direction.
Of course, when you get one thing in your life straightened out, you start wanting to straighten out the rest. My main goal in life is to become a writer. To be a writer. I have, at times, been a writer, but presently I am not. I haven't written much of anything since 2020.
You might remember if you were reading my blog back then, that I was doing a challenge to reach 300,000 words written in one year. In August, I achieved that goal, and I took a few days off from writing. Those few days have now stretched into almost two years.
Now that I'm feeling good about my health, I was thinking about starting back up with writing. I thought maybe I'd do it in May, but May 1st came, and I wasn't ready, so I didn't do it.
I thought I'd do it in June instead, but then June 1st came, and, well...I just didn't. I just did other things. I could have, but I didn't. And now it's almost halfway through June, and I still haven't.
So, do I wait until July? That's what I've always done in the past...or worse yet, I could wait until my birthday. That's my more tradition starting point, but that's several months away. How much closer to my goals could I be if I waited until then?
When I challenged Marshal Latham to do the 30-Day Carnivore Challenge, I expected him to say, "Okay, let's start Monday." Instead he said:
Tomorrow? Oh, uh...I guess I could do tomorrow. I was looking forward to another few days of inertia, but I guess this is the force that's going to move me.
I hold Marshal's example up as a gold standard. Why wait to change. If you know it's better, then change now. I need to apply that to writing.
I used the excuse that I wasn't ready before, but that's not true. I could write anything. There's no reason to not start a brand new story, or just write a scene about a character, something exploratory that I likely will never use. It's still writing. It's still practice that will lead me to the pros. I need to stop avoiding commitment and get going.
Memento Mori.
The obstacle is the way.
Vai en frente, bichinho.
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