Monday, June 14, 2010

Staying Enaged

It's hard.

It's hard to stay focused. It's hard to take the long way around. It's hard to come home after work and devote four hours to your side projects. It's hard to remember how to spell "devote".

It's hard to wake up early in order to bike or take the bus, when it's easier just jump in your car. It's hard to pack a lunch the night before, when it's so easy just to buy pre-made food. It's hard to pre-set your coffeemaker, when you can just buy a latte. It's hard to eat simply, when it's so much easier to buy fancy restaurant food. It's hard to read Shakespeare, when it's so easy to read Agatha Christie. (Or worse, blogs.) It's hard to just walk to J.Crew when you need new clothes, instead of scouring thrift stores.

And now that you've taken the easy and more expensive way out of all your obligations, you find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands, so it's even harder to pare your life down to its basic necessities instead of filling it with things that fill your extra gobs of free time.

It's even harder to bitch about these very, very small concerns in the face of so many REAL problems in the world. That is all.

1 comment:

Sean Oliver said...

Staying engaged is hard. This is true.
I recently found a note book from 2008, before a lot of change in my life. I wrote down my goals then. What was sobering was the discover
What I’ve found helpful is to not get distanced from my big goals and desirable outcomes by making sure to use bite size pieces.
Now, mind you, minutia is hard if there is not overarching awesomeness attached. Eating healthy? Blech. Looking your bombest? Yay!
If everything feels like an overhaul I’ll never do it. Be a better friend? Oof. That’s huge. Call someone right now and let them know how important they are, so they know they are ‘dug’. That takes 5 min. Rinse, repeat, and a year later *boom* killer friend.
A year is gonna pass regardless. If you spot your landing though, at least you won’t be in a same spot.