Skip to main content

Do Something -- Writer's Poke #392




The problem with life is figuring out how each day fits into the big picture. After all, just how much can anyone accomplish in just one day? It often seems so trivial. This morning, for example, I checked-in on my two online classes; then, I went to the coffee shop to read some philosophy. From here, I will go to the gym. In the afternoon, I plan to watch a movie, and then it will be time to pick up my daughter from preschool, make dinner, spend time with my family, and go to bed.

Honestly, today is and will continue to be a great day. Everything I’m doing, even watching the movie, has a specific purpose. I am being “productive,” “healthy,” and “responsible.” All good things, yes? But at the same time, it all looks so mundane. So normal. And, in some respects, so “blah.” That’s it? That’s my day?
 
But that’s how life works. You live day-by-day, and each day can be a step in the right direction, or it can be nothing. Today, for me, is a step in the right direction, but I have to remind myself that it is a step, because to be truthful, it sometimes feels more like “nothing.”
 
Consider for a moment what nothing actually is. Nothing is staying in bed and sleeping the day away. Nothing is surfing the Internet for hours. Nothing is watching meaningless television shows. Those are examples of “a whole lot of nothing,” and it’s very easy to get sucked into the void of doing nothing, especially when the daily steps can feel like standing in place.
 
Just keep in mind what doing nothing truly means, and don't let the small daily steps get you down. You have the ability to move forward. You just need to decide where you want to go, and don’t let the fact that the process required to reach your destination is incremental rather than immediate. If you want to go somewhere, though, you have to do something. That matters.

 
What do you want to do today? What’s stopping you?

 "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do." -- Helen Keller 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus and the Inconvenience of His Word to American Christians

I'm not a preacher, but if you follow the teachings of Jesus, it was he who said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. That's from Luke 6:31 , and reading all of Luke 6 isn't a bad way to spend five minutes of your time.  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206&version=NIV I guess a lot of Christians understand the Golden Rule and practice it in their daily lives. Others, however, especially political Christians (and specifically those promoting Christian Nationalism) seem to ignore the Golden Rule. They don't care about humanitarian issues. They claim they either don't exist, aren't the problem of the United States, or are the fault of the victims. They counter with distractions like, "Why do you care so much about THEM when you should be caring about the REAL people who matter?" Sorry, but I don't recall Jesus ever dividing people into those who matter more and those who matter less. Of course, Jesus also said not to j...
Post a Comment
Read more

Microblogging? The Future of Writing with ADHD

Bill Bennett is a very common name. Right now, I'm reading a book by the Australian film maker Bill Bennett. He hiked the Camino in 2013 and then wrote a book (and made an Australian movie, not available in the U.S.) about it.  Seems he kept a blog about that hike, too. I went to look for his Camino blog, and found he started one years after the hike, but he didn't post regularly... His last post from 2022 announced his had Parkinson's and had kept the diagnosis secret for 4 years.  Now that almost three years have passed from that post, I wonder what's happened to him.  Blogs are weird. They just sit there. Anyone can stumble upon them, and read them. So I decided to keep looking for his Camino blog.  https://billbennett.blog/home/ *** And I found another Bill Bennett, this one from New Zealand, who keeps a microblog. It's current and updated. "What's a microblog?" My wife asked. Well, I said, it's a small blog. Just a sentence or two for a post. ...
Post a Comment
Read more