[Perry] Juggling to Avoid Guilt

This post isn’t exactly what the title might make you think…though that would be a fun image to contemplate, wouldn’t it?

Grab some random household objects and start juggling for a while anytime you feel guilty. It sounds like a plan to me. How about one or two of you go check that out and report back to the rest of us?

But no, that wasn’t exactly what I meant.

This post is about dealing with the guilt of not being productive.

I’m sure that a lot of us, especially those of us who pursue various creative activities, have felt this specific brand of guilt before.

It’s a low and sneaking sort of guilt. One that brings you down for the times when you’re feeling a little lazy or don’t feel like pushing against your boundaries and limits quite that hard today.

I feel it on a regular basis.

I consider myself a writer and therefore, I should be writing, right? I usually have a project that could use some work, whether it’s writing something new, editing a finished work, or finding some sort of writing activity to hone my skills to a razor sharp point.

Though some days? I’m just not feeling it.

I’ll get home from work and the LAST thing I want to do is rake my fingers over the coals of my keyboard. The LAST thing I want to do is rake over the dying embers of my inspiration and see if I can maybe find something within that still has some fire in its heart, something that can be salvaged.

Oftentimes, writing can feel a lot like work.

So what do I do?

I could take the night off. Argue and rationalize it all to myself that I totally deserve it and that everyone gets a break once in a while.

But the problem with that is that the break grows longer and longer. The longer I stay away from it, the less inclined I am to start again. The more I dwell on the hard work aspects of it instead of the fun and creative fire bits of it.

Next thing you know? Three months have passed and in literary terms, I’ve grown fat and dirty, slouched on the couch watching tv shows for days at a time in a daze.

This happened to me on a fairly regular basis.

I’d go through a period of frantic creativity…then slouch in the doldrums for a period of time that was almost but not quite too long.

I have found a personal cure for this cycle and I’m sharing it with you now in the hopes that maybe, it’ll help some of you too.

I still write these days…and I still occasionally feel the need to slouch on creative couch and brush off the hard work for a while, but I approach it differently now.

Now?

I procrastinate by pursuing a second creative hobby.

I’m slowly learning to play the guitar. And progress is…phenomenally slow. I actually despair of ever really learning to play with any kind of proficiency…but there’s a guitar in my room and I’ll be goddamned if I can’t at least play a couple songs from start to finish.

So I write until I feel the urge to slouch or take a break or just plain DON’T want to write anymore…and on the days I don’t write? I force myself to pick up the guitar for at least an hour and practice.

It’s one or the other.

I give myself the weekends off, but during the weekdays? It’s either spend at least an hour writing, or spend at least an hour playing guitar.

And maybe this doesn’t really help. Maybe the split focus is hurting both crafts instead of helping either…but you know what?

For me? It works.

Most weeks, I’ll alternate.

Some weeks, I’ll spend the entire week on one thing before getting tired of bashing my head into a wall with it and switching to the other.

The important thing for me is that it alleviates the intense GUILT that I used to be saddled with when I took a day off from writing.

Now, even if I’m not writing, I feel the satisfaction of at least improving myself in another way.

I get tired of writing and play the guitar.

I get tired of playing the guitar and start writing.

That’s my system and it works for me and every day, in one way or another, I improve and expand my skills.

This is what works for me…but what works for you? How do you avoid the guilt of not being productive?

Do you dance? Do you sing? Do you maybe work-out?

What do you juggle?

 

 

Related posts:

One Thing At A Time
Giving Myself Permission
The Art of Juggling Flaming Bears