Avoiding A Cart and A Horse

 

One day, last week, I was impulsively prompted to start reading this blog from its very beginnings. I made it through almost an entire month’s worth of articles before being called away to other things.

This morning, although I came here to add yet another blog article, I found myself dithering around, distracting myself with other thoughts, and simply avoiding the task at hand. Eventually, I went back and started rereading my old posts again. I made it through several weeks worth and am now here and present. I think.

I have been very busy of late and my days, although full, seem to run from one into another without much time spent in reflection of any kind. I do my journal writing, but it is quickly completed and then left for all those other obligations and responsibilities. But, I really stalled out when I got here this morning. Although I had a lot of things running through my mind, I simply didn’t seem capable of plucking out one of those thoughts and just going with it to fill this page.

I tried several other things, getting up from the computer, rambling around my small apartment, doing small things, coming back only to get up and ramble a bit more. I tried doing something in my sketchbook, but put that away almost as quickly as the thought of writing here. Nothing was working, let alone, coming together. So, I went back to the rereading of the things I had written many months ago.

What I found was me. The one who does all of this writing, and often wonders why she does it to begin with. As a matter of fact, she was stuck right there this morning. Distracting herself, looking for herself, and accidentally finding herself in her own words. Bummer? Or an amazing coincidence? A neat little piece of synchronicity to get her back here, on the page, laying down words, and hoping they will all come together somehow and make sense. Hopefully, to you the reader, but more importantly, to herself.

Avoidance does work, at least for a time period. But, no matter how much we dither around, ramble through whatever rooms and things are available, attempt to distract ourselves, we invariably end up back where we needed to be all along. Back to the very thing and place we have been avoiding. Why do we do that?

Good question and one I’m not real sure I can answer at the moment. All I know is that I am here because this is where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. And I am here, because I found myself telling me, in my own words, to do just that. Finding that message in words I wrote over a year ago. Words that made all kinds of sense, and had a much deeper meaning than I thought at the time they were written.

The message was quite clear: Just get on the page, start, and it will all go where it is supposed to go and become whatever it is to become. Perhaps, even more important, was the fact that those words contained an element of joy and satisfaction that I was definitely missing in this present moment. Missing, and incorrectly thinking that one must have the joy and the knowledge of satisfaction to even begin. That’s putting the cart before the horse and expecting it to roll itself uphill and drag the nag right along with it.

I want to be a good writer. By that, I do not mean famous or profound. I want to be coherent and enjoyable on the page. But, if I’m not feeling those things in the moment, how can they happen and become that? It might sound completely silly, but I forgot in the present moment, that satisfaction and the attendant joy that comes with it, are a result of the doing of the task, of and in actually completing it. Dah!

Laughing at myself also helps. It lightens all the tangles and knots I was creating by dithering and rambling. And believe me, those knots were getting really really tight. If I had let them, they might have paralyzed me for hours, maybe even days, wasting daylight and lots of time accomplishing nothing other than tighter knots. Preventing me from not only this task but all those others I spoke of earlier.

Going back and rereading my journal, often has the same affect. Yet, it is so very easy to forget the simplest things and have to relearn them again. Or, at least make contact with them frequently. Which, in turn, is one of the most important aspects of writing a journal in the first place. Staying in contact with the most important individual in ones existence. That of self.

At the very least, for today I do know that ideas and thoughts come first. Then comes action based on those thoughts and ideas. And only after action, come feelings. Now the nag is at the front of the cart, pulling it up the hill that is today. That works much much better. I might even be able to find a carrot with which to keep her moving in whatever direction I find myself in need of going.

What are the thing/s you avoid most often and why? How do you avoid and does it work for more than a short time period? Do you feel a certain satisfaction in that avoidance? What is it you want to accomplish and are you somehow avoiding it? Just some questions for thought, or even for words on a journal page. Who knows? They might actually become carrots.