Operation Achieve Anything: Day Fourteen, Dateline 1-14-2018
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“You have achieved success if you have lived well, laughed often and loved much.”
Here we are at the end of week two of Operation Achieve Anything and things are still going pretty well. Granted, most of the assignments up to this point have been simple tasks that seem to foreshadow future calls to action, but I appreciate this slow-building approach, especially when you consider there are still three hundred and fifty-one days left to this challenge.
Right now, the Achieve Anything... book seems to be focusing on the idea that most major goals aren't often achieved by people going at it on their own since many of the recent assignments involve taking inventory of the people in my life. I get the point that there is power in numbers, but for me, at this point, I'd prefer those numbers to come from strangers who've actually read my work and are enthusiastic about wanting to get involved over to continue to pester the people close to me for help.
I've already been ignored by my personal networks when it comes to collaborating on projects, so I'm trying to find a new route. This is why I might seem hesitant, or at least unenthusiastic when it comes to these network building assignments that seem to be setting me up for a task where I reach out to my friends. That said, I'm still putting in the effort due to my commitment to the process.
With that said, yesterday's assignment was another thought experiment with an optional call to action. I was asked to think about a task that would help the community without expecting anything in return. This took me back to the time when I volunteered for Habitat For Humanity that I merely signed up in an effort to get out of a rut only to end up being treated like a court-appointed set of hands there to work off a DUI.
I wouldn't say that this instance discouraged me from coming back, but it definitely didn't help. I could also go into all of the volunteering that I did to help out the Seattle film community back when I was learning the ropes, but even though I worked for free, I was benefiting by learning the craft in order to do it for pay eventually. I also benefited from the fact that many of the filmmakers who I helped returned the favor when it came time to make my handful of short movies.
Now that I've written it out, this second example, which I only half-assed shared is probably a better example of what the Achieve Anything... book is trying to get me to learn. When I did volunteer, I didn't really expect any sort of payback other than having fun while working toward both professional and personal growth, any additional benefits were coincidental but appreciated, showing that you get back what you put into this world.
Today's assignment is only kind of a relationship based task in that the examples being used to share that there is more to life than work all deal with time spent with family and friends. Meanwhile, the overall lesson seems to be not to use monetary or professional success be the gauge for your happiness. It then asks me to list five things that I'm grateful for as well as five ways that I already am a success.
As always, I will share my finding when I check in tomorrow for another update. Until then, it's now that time for me to wrap things 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.
