When I was in college, I was able to delude myself into thinking that with school came a natural ability to focus, produce, and accomplish. I told myself that semesters brought a structure in themselves that I could feed off of, instead of having to create my own will to get things done. What usually ended up happening was a standoff between my homework and me. It would sit there, staring me in the face or burning a hole in my bag, while I pretended it didn’t exist. A similar occurrence is taking place in my life right now. Since I’ve graduated college, I’ve wanted to take my writing ventures more seriously. I’ve wanted to write travel articles and opinion essays, work on my book, produce short stories, write important blog posts (that clearly hasn’t happened, as you can tell). Last week, I told myself the only way to get things done the way they need to get done is by making sure I go to bed early enough each morning that I can wake up early and get some writing in before the work day begins.
This idea came from author, Julia Cameron, who encourages the activity of Morning Pages. The purpose is to sit down and write out all the garbage in your mind that may strain your focus and keep you from writing real assignments throughout the day. I thought this would be perfect for me, considering I’ve had an awful time focusing on anything lately, especially my writing, and set my alarm one night to wake up an hour before I needed to start getting ready for work. My plan was to get up, get the bathroom essentials taken care of, and write with a warm cup of coffee steaming by my side as I wrote out all the “sleep” from my brain to get me detoxed and prepared to work later on. Well, that didn’t happen. When my phone started buzzing at me to get out of bed, instead of sliding the button over to cut off the sound, I merely pressed Sleep, and turned over. The rest of the week went in the same vein.
Since graduating, I’ve told myself that if I just go back to school and become invested in a serious literature or writing program that requires my full attention in order to succeed, then I’ll magically shed myself of my sluggish ways and pull a Hermione Granger overnight, except maybe without the crazy hair. But after last week, I’ve had a reality check. If I can’t focus, produce, and accomplish without having to worry about school, I’m not going to focus, produce, and accomplish with having to worry about school. If anything, I need to take the time I have before next Fall semester to make some serious changes in the way I perform as, not just a writer, but a worker, in general. And I realized that if I truly, truly want this, I will find a way to make it work. Even if it means feeling tired, even if it means not getting any “me” time for a while, even if it means not going out with friends as much as I’d like. So, today, I gave myself the morning to sleep in. It is Sunday, after all. But, tomorrow, it’s time to refocus, recharge, and produce, and in producing comes accomplishing, and in accomplishing comes the warm feeling of satisfaction that I haven’t felt in a long time.