Operation Achieve Anything: Day Seventy-Five, Dateline 3-16-2018

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness; the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow.
— Ayya Khema

Good morning Crickets. Welcome to day number seventy-five of Operation Achieve Anything. I know just yesterday I was talking about switching my schedule in order to start my day out with an episode of Saturday Night Live as part of my Seeso Many Saturday Nights challenge where I’m watching and reviewing every episode of the show ever made. I figured this might be a more pleasant way to begin my day but didn’t factor in how sometimes, I will watch an episode in the evening to then write the review the next day. This was the case last night and since I don’t like starting a new episode before finishing my latest review, I figured I’d wrap up my day before moving forward on building my SNL review surplus.

Hell, I’ve got enough backup reviews built up from watching two episodes a day for the entire weeks that I might finish up my latest review and take the rest of the day off in order to enjoy my Friday.  After all, I did all this extra work because I planned to take a break and visit my oldest sister this weekend but things got postponed until next weekend. Since I don’t have a life, I’ll probably cope with the change by working as usual over the next couple of days so I’d have no problem going easy today.

I’m sure this plan will change the second I get caught up and find that I’ve got hours to kill and an inability to give into my need for a break. Again, this is because I feel the need to be extra productive on my own task in order to justify my existence since I don’t have a traditional job or a steady enough income to not feel judged for how I spend my own time. Also again, this insecurity over how I spend my time is mainly from internalized fears that the efforts that I’ve put into my personal project will never translate into any form of a career leaving me to wonder if it’s worth it.

I mention this fear of failure because it plays into yesterday’s assignment where I was supposed to do some soul-searching. The lesson mainly focused on how many people fear to face who they really are which leads them to live an inauthentic existence. I don’t think this has ever been a problem with me, in fact, I’d go as far as to say that soul-searching is my favorite past time which might be why I’m such an introvert.

The assignment also asked me to contemplate things that I might be hiding from myself that could potentially be holding back my progress. I never thought my hang-ups were all that hidden and have always been open about the fact that I don’t feel that I’m good enough at what I love in order to make my dreams come true which is why I’m working my ass off to get there. This holds me back because, until I do feel like I’m good enough my main goal is to magically be discovered even though I barely do anything other than passive social media posts to promote my latest effort.

To add to the issue, I don’t feel I will ever be accepted as a person until I achieve my goals. When I was young it was easier to accept outsiders because of how all of my peers were broke and dumb as well. With every passing year, I started to feel more of a sense from others that it might time for me to give up but that’s just not an option for me. This is why even though I might be a bit of a pessimist in ways that might hamper a quick road to success, I’m committed to following what my soul has been telling me as I continue to search.

I think that fulfills the task but again, it was a vague thought-experiment of an assignment that wasn’t necessarily designed for readers to share their result. Today’s assignment is more of the same about learning to live in the moment and once again, I’m supposed to notice the world around me while taking everything in with all of my senses and then list ten things that I found.

I know that I sound like I’m dragging my feet and that’s because I am. Even the book seems to be aware how annoying it is as it’s started to include taunts in its lessons by using examples of people who doubt the process and have given up on the book only to continue to fail. Again, my issue isn’t with what’s being suggested, my issue is I thought there would be more tasks geared toward achieving a specific goal over this general practice of self-help that I’m already familiar with.

As always, I’m not going to give up no matter how disappointed I am because completing the Achieve Anything… book is one of the “anythings” that I set out to achieve whether or not the book itself ends up being all that useful because it is giving valid advice.

Oh well, that’s all that I’ve got for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow to find out how I end up fulfilling today’s assignment. Until then, it’s now that time to wrap this up by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.