Day 201 - Discipline (5 Things)
Inspired by Summer Brennen’s 5 Things. I would say that this will be a regular thing, I want it to be. But that requires, well, discipline. Read on…
1. Discipline, once you’ve lost it, it is difficult to get back. I have all the time in the world now, with only my cat and dog to vie for my attention, to need me, and yet. I can’t bring myself to do tasks that used to come so easily to me. To sit my ass in the chair and write, even when it hurt. Instead I waste the day away. Reading the news. Playing candy crush. Doing things that need to be done but that won’t pay the bills (taxes). Running errands to get my life back to myself. Worrying about things before they happen. Stewing on things that have happened in the past. Being angry. Thinking about the future. Worrying about the future. Dreaming of a future.
2. I talk as though discipline is something I can regain, but I wonder if I ever had it to begin with? I suppose it takes discipline to write eight novels, but it’s been so long since writing was easy (Badlands was the last easy novel I wrote, possibly Secret). Since 2017 I’ve come to understand the it’s like getting blood from a stone writing adage. The only way past this block, or whatever you want to call it, is through it. I know that. But I feel like Andy Dufresne most of the time, using a dull rock hammer to tunnel out of my creative prison.
3. 2020 will definitely go down as the worst year of my life, but the years leading up to it were pretty awful taken as a whole, though there were moments of happiness in there as well. Moments when I could fool myself that things were getting better, that long term happiness was still possible. My mental and emotional struggles manifested into a thirty pound weight gain, ten a year. I call it my Trump weight, though he’s not to blame. Well, maybe partially. I’ve lost half of it, so things are looking up.
4. Not thinking of someone, not talking about them, when they’ve been part of your life for nearly three decades will be a test of my discipline, but necessary for my mental and physical health. Hopefully it will lead to that elusive happiness I am chasing.
5. I’m one day away from matching my longest NYT crossword solving streak. Discipline for the win.
