Operation Achieve Anything: Day Three-Hundred-Thirty-Eight, Dateline 12-4-2018
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“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were all the big thing.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-thirty-eight of Operation Achieve Anything. I don’t know what the hell ending up happening to yesterday. Yes, I did get a late start. Yes, I did end up rambling a little more than usual in both The Daily Breaker post and the intro to my review of Ed Helms’ first visit as host on SNL. Yes, there were even technical difficulties that delayed any progress for about one hour, but none of that explains how it ended up being a ten hour day just to get through the bare minimum to meet all of my daily deadlines.
Part of me feels disappointed with myself for not getting more done, considering I am in a productive headspace to where I went on to put in two more hours of behind-the-scenes work, but then there is another part of me that’s proud since most of the slowness had to do with it being a quality over quantity day. Not that I don’t typically worry about quality, but sometimes I feel inspiration strike that really gets me rambling about what’s going on in my head. It probably didn’t help that I kept finding myself daydreaming because, for the first time in years, I feel like I’m back to really focusing on “how” over “if” and/or “when” I will get to taste the fruits of my labor.
I now see the words “if” and “when” as gambling terms with luck having more to do with the outcome, while “how” leads to the active effort of getting things done. Either way, I’m putting in the same amount of work on the actual tasks at hand, but now during any downtime, instead of thinking things like, “(If/When) I figure out how to earn an income I’ll _______,” I’m thinking, “How can I earn enough of an income to ________?”
I’m still new to this line of thinking, so I don’t have any results to share, but, internally I feel more in control than ever before. Even though I’ve been writing on a daily basis for years, I honestly feel that the semi-psychedelic experience that I had while on my legal medical edible Thanksgiving treat flipped the switch to where I no longer see my efforts as a hobby that I hope to turn into a job. I now see my writing as a low-paying gig, and it’s up to me to figure out how to increase my salary.
This new outlook removes any need for the “ifs” and “whens” since I’m already doing what I want. This actually leads into the assignment from yesterday where I was supposed to explore the things in life that bring me joy, and what a life of abundance means to me. As a starving artist, I’ve trained myself to get by with very few physical needs in my effort to afford a life where I have control of my time. For me, personally, to have an abundance of time to create is more important than anything else in the world.
When do I get around to figuring things out, I can see adding an abundance of comfort would be my next goal, and then I’d probably stop right there, at least as far as abundance of needs may go. I noticed that I started the paragraph with “when,” but that’s not the when that I’m talking about up above when I said that I was giving it up. This type of “when,” is delivered with a confidence that it’s going to happen, and not just an “if” statement in disguise, like when I say something like, “When I can finally find enough money to pay for an editor I’d ________.”
I’m sure this boost in confidence won’t last forever if I see no progress with the new approach over the next couple of months but for now, the last week and a half has been amazing as I’ve been experiencing the taste of the life that I actually want to live. The funny thing is, nothing has really changed at all other than my new mindset. I’m just now seeing that I really can be an individual who can find abundance in nothing and be happy this way. Keep in mind, I’ve been able to write about my life with abundance, and I literally have barely left my room over the past four years and don’t really feel like I’m missing out. If anything, I feel more guilt over how much I enjoy my alone time over anything else. This probably comes from a lifetime of being an introvert wearing an extroverts life, hanging on to old ideas instead of nurturing the new ones.
So that covers yesterday’s task making it time to move on to introduce the assignment for today where I’m now supposed to pay attention to the little things since when put together, the small can become very large. Speaking of paying attention to the little things, the author suggested opening the window to enjoy the Spring air, not thinking that most people would probably get this book as a Christmas gift to start a year-long challenge at the start of the year, today is three-thirty-eight, why wouldn’t he just use a winter example. Oh well, I’ll dig into that tomorrow when I check in with how I handle this task in tomorrow’s update. Until then, it’s now that time for 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.
