Operation Achieve Anything: Day Three-Hundred-Thirty-Three, Dateline 11-29-2018
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“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-thirty-three of Operation Achieve Anything. This is turning into an interesting week as my goal to hit the ground running on Monday, following a mini-Thanksgiving break has evolved into a week of rest and planning. I want to give myself grief for going easy, but I ended up working both Saturday and Sunday when I was supposed to be taking time off to reset. I need to remember that these changes in plans can go both ways.
Typically, when I don’t have to much to say, I use these Daily Breaker post to work through any issues that I’m dealing with in my effort to acknowledge any flaws in the hopes that I will then work through them. Unfortunately, since I’ve opted to chase my dreams while floundering through life working temporary/task-based jobs, I put a lot of weight on my productivity levels to justify my decision to live an nontraditional existence in my own little world. I also have to remember that the only person openly criticizing this decision is me.
I find that I can over-spin my wheels worried what others think about, not really me, but my efforts, since most of my inner conflicts come from witnessing others be extremely critical to others in similar situations. Personally, other than while trying to explain what I’m up to, especially when I just want a little down time, I’m actually proud of my efforts considering I’ve been on an extremely long road trying to figure out this life all on my own, with extremely minimal guidance.
The signs that I see that I’m on the right track may seem pathetic to those with more grandiose requirements as to what success might mean. You have to remember, all that I want is to be able to turn a twenty plus year careers worth of content into a salary of a minimum wage job that will afford me a small town cozy home where I can work on my projects until the end of my time on this earth. My time is more valuable to me than money ever will be, whether I’m working toward my opus of a novel, this blog, or merely farting around.
This might be why I’m more worried about how outsiders may be judgmental toward my time management over any of my other concerns. That said, the guilt isn’t all from my own interpretations of potential complaints from the outside world. I’m also seeing continual progress on a daily basis and fear more than anything that any momentum might dry up simply by taking the slightest of breaks. At the same time, I also notice a drop in the quality of my content when I overextend myself during times when I attempt to push myself through the exhaustion.
Granted there are many times when I’m in the right frame of mind where I am in a productive mood and love nothing more than to push myself until I can push no more, but during those periods, I don’t feel any guilt, so those aren’t the cases I’m talking about. I’m talking days like today where I will be done with all of my obligations by noon, I want to start December strong, so the rational side of me wants to rest up. Too bad my neurotic side is much louder, as I work myself into believing that any downtime equals procrastination.
I think this is because my dad was a Ralph Kramden type, always looking for a get rich quick side hustle to escape his body wrecking career as a construction worker. I fear that my family feels I inherited his daydreaming way, but worse because at least in his cases he kept working the at the job that he hated the entire time. Then again, his side hustles where legitimate get rich quick fantasies. He was also a gambler, so for him, at least at the time, the ventures seemed as much for the rush as they were legitimate attempts to escape the workforce since he never went too far into any fantasy to where he couldn’t support himself and/or the family.
At one point, when I was a kid, he sincerely wanted to be a gold miner, which was fun, got him out into nature which he loves, and kept him busy in ways that he enjoyed. So, I’m not really saying it was a waste of his time, but it didn’t seem as grounded in reality as my desire to live off of what I write. Whether or not my efforts are valid, I do feel each failure to find my way triggers like father, like son rolling of the eyes at my attempts to escape a nine-to-five life.
All I ever wanted was the freedom to do what I want with my time. I swallow my pride on a daily basis as I attempt to achieve this goal. I know I’m not the best at anything I do. I know that I’ll probably never be better than mediocre. I know that even if I do find my small corner of the world where a small group of people actually seek out my work that I’ll have just as many critics who can’t stand my experimental approach. I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy again, but every morning, I wake up, swallow some pride and continue on with this journey that started over forty years ago. It gets tiresome at times but I’ve yet to stop, so I guess that’s saying something.
That also fulfills the assignment from yesterday where I was supposed to discuss my views on swallowing one's pride. With that, I’m going to move on to introduce today’s assignment where I’m now supposed to practice blending generosity with pride and start to practice taking less than I need while giving more than I can, or at least share how I already implement this into my life. As always, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow to read what I actually have to say on the subject. Until then, it’s that time for me to sign of 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.
