Operation Achieve Anything: Day Three-Hundred-Fifty, Dateline 12-16-2018
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“Modesty: the art of encouraging people to find out for themselves how wonderful you are.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-fifty of Operation Achieve Anything. It’s Sunday, and my head is fried from being from being a bit extra wordy throughout the week as I anxiously await the upcoming New Year while sharing my hopes and fears of what's to come. My hopes are high because throughout this entire year I’ve been seeing continuous progress with only a couple of slip up which is rare. Typically, my ups to downs ratio is pretty balanced which is where the fear that all of my efforts to push forward will end up being for not.
At least this time it’s more of a back of the head concern than an expectation the way that it used to. Either way, the slight concern is still stuck in my brain, so I tend to ramble even more than usual as I work through it. This is because I’m always looking for an alternate plan due to my lifetime of failure. This sort of plays into the assignment from yesterday where I was supposed to explore how willing I am to accept that I’m wrong as the book continues its humility theme. I feel like I’ve always been looking for multiple routes to success since I’m so open to being wrong when one of my convoluted plans fails to pan out.
Not being afraid to be wrong is why I often land dead center when it comes to most debates, which is an incredibly lonely place to stand. This centralist outlook is not based on a fear of commitment, it’s more that I genuinely agree with bits and pieces from all sides, making it difficult for me to draw unwavering lines. One of the most significant problems that I see with the modern world is that we seem to be getting pushed into thinking that there is only one correct way to do something and everything else is wrong. One way to think, one way to be, all the while screaming about the importance of individuality as if there is only one way to be an individual.
I’d much rather continue to be wrong my entire existence while trying out how to be my very own me than be told what I’m supposed to think. I do listen to the arguments being thrown out by the masses and implement what I feel fits in with my belief system, but I do that information shopping a la carte. Yes, this has led to some unpopular opinions of me from my refusing to give in to ideas that I mostly agree with but can’t commit to due to very specific aspects of the argument. I’m not afraid to opt for none of the above sometimes.
Yes, this does make me sound stubborn, but I’ve learned from my lifetime of failure that if you want to be a full-fledged individual, you’re going to be wrong one-hundred percent of the time, at least through somebody else’s eyes. This is the reason that I gave up on screenwriting where work is produced by comity, and everyone else involved is so hell-bent on sticking with what works for the bucks with the art being not so important. This may be fine for business types, but I preferred to open up my freedom to explore which is why I started this blog.
I can’t wait to get to a place where I can get back to focusing on my fictional work because that will be the real sign that I’ve arrived back to a place where I’m having fun. Yes, there is my Chuck Norris novel at the bottom of the page, but that’s the first draft of a screenplay adaptation that I wrote a couple of years ago when I was still stuck in my screenwriter’s head. This turned out to be the year that I broke my line of thinking that I have to mainly focus on writing what would be seen on the screen.
I can’t wait to get to a point where I’m actually making a minimum wage living off of my own work so that I can stop being distracted by the pressures of earning just enough to exist, and really knuckle down and rework all of my old failed efforts that I always planned to revisit. Part of me feels that minus my failures, I would have been pushed into a direction that I wouldn’t be as proud of, even if it also probably would have led to my own house by this point. I have no idea if I will ever be able to pull off my dream as planned, but I love the latest blueprint that I see in front of me and really hope I won’t have to rip up and start again. I think this one’s a keeper.
Now that I’ve covered my relationship with failure, it’s time to introduce the assignment for today where I’m now supposed to do something that might be difficult due to the nature of this challenge and practice modesty. Though I feel like I own up to all of my flaws, the book’s example says to stop trying to convince myself and others that I’m special and just be. We’ll see what I manage to do with this task when I check in tomorrow with my next update. Until then, allow me to sign off as usual 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.
