Every Step

I once read a blog post about creators vs consumers. About how life is meant to be created rather than simply consumed. The blog post was talking about how consuming life was more around the idea of waiting for things to happen, to join in with whatever is happening rather than creating the things you most want. Consuming is unimaginative and sticks with the status quo.

It made sense to me. To think that creating would be loads more fulfilling rather than waiting for things to simply land on our laps. How can fulfilment happen if you are simply a spitting image of the society around you with no originality or thoughts of your own. It's easier, of course, to simply float on by. It's easier to simply puppet what you've been told. It's easy to join a group that is similar to what you want or do a job that you sort of like because it's already there. Why bother if you're mostly happy on some days?

I like easy. I'm a procrastinator. I always say tomorrow will be a new and better day. That things will change. I also hate copying people though. It makes me feel uncomfortable. So though I like easy, I'd rather it be hard. I'd rather try and push even though on so many days I fail. I push because I want to look back and say I made that happen for myself. I didn't just stumble upon it, or let someone else do it. 

I did it. I did it for myself. I created something worth it even if it took a long time to do it. Even if there were days I couldn't push myself out of bed to go for that run. Or I only wrote one sentence all week on that novel I'm working on.  Every step counts, even the disappointing days where you think that could have been so much better. 

Maybe I'm feeling idealistic this morning, but life, my life, can be created. I can make things. I can shift things. Sure, I may never make a big change in the world as a whole. I can make a change in mine though. I can continue thinking these small steps will eventually lead me somewhere. At least I'm trying. 

The Bottom Line

I woke up at six this morning. I lay in bed and think how nice it would be to sleep in just one more hour. The air would be a bit warmer and the house wouldn't feel so eerily still. But I forced myself up, throwing my whole body into it and made a cup of coffee.

I'm trying something new. I've been meaning to do it for a while, but the warm bed has always had other plans. I'm trying to wake up earlier. Maybe with these extra hours I'll have more time to get things done. I won't find excuses that I don't have time for that run, or I need to make a good breakfast so I don't have time to write a few pages before work. It's so easy to procrastinate.

I was sitting in my desk chair with some faint music playing in the background with my cup next to me and a notebook sitting on my lap. I felt loads more awake and I started to write some bare outlines to this plot I've let ruminate in my brain. I spent an hour sketching out some basic background information and the main plot idea.

I realized it was only seven thirty and the morning stretched out before me like a airport runway. It got me thinking that perhaps this morning thing wasn't such a bad idea. I actually felt like I accomplished something rather than thinking that tomorrow would be a good day to start everything I wanted to do. Tomorrows usually look much like how I've done my today's.

I feel better. My hair is currently wrapped up in a towel as it dries from a shower and I think I still have a couple hours to go before work. I have a book half read and Bible I haven't picked up in a while. I think that perhaps it is time to stop making excuses why I don't have the time and just do it. That is the bottom line.

We shall see if this early morning rising continues

Let's Play

I love the snow. Not just because I have to because I live in a country where is snows more than it suns. I love it because it's bright and makes the world look pretty. I like the sound it makes when it crunches beneath my boots. I like kicking at it and seeing the flakes flutter to the ground.

I like the feel of the air too, when the sun is shining, but there is a biting chill that reddens cheeks. It's fresher than anything I know. It's a coating and the snow sparkles when the sun hits it. It's beautiful. I think it gives new life even if the branches beneath the snow are dead for winter. It's a new world in winter.

Winter has never been something you need to get through. No. It's a time to embrace and enjoy because it has so much to offer. So, when it snowed again this morning, I put my Santa Claus socks on and said come snow, let's play.

Perhaps if we spent less time trying to wait for the perfect weather and the perfect moment, we might notice the beauty around us.  Hold out our hands while it snows and look at each snowflake and take joy in that beauty. It's what we have right now.

Settling?

Working at a job I don't love is odd.

I've always held that when I work I should love it. I should wake up in the morning and be excited to do it. Reality isn't always like that. I suppose we all have our dues to pay. We can't think we'll magically get handed the best job handcrafted just for me. That's naive and too idealistic, even for me. 

So I feel the spaces where it hits me- I don't love my job. I do it because right now I'm in limbo, but I feel like I've sold my soul simply to get a pay check. I feel my heart yearn at work when it's quiet. It lets me think of everything I'd rather be and I wonder to myself if I've settled. 

Settled for something I never wanted. I ask if this will get me where I want to go and I don't know the answer. I don't think a person can love their job all their time. I think sometimes it is a daily grind. But I know for sure I don't want it to be a cycle of terrible jobs I do simply to get the money. Life has to be more than that.

It's odd for me to be here. To have graduated from University, to be going back to school in the Autumn, but to still feel like I'm so far from where I want to be. As if the person I think I am is so far from the person I am. 

I like to think I'm one with far flung dreams where the horizon is only a minute away. One who truly believes anything is possible and that life is something of an adventure and it is a beautiful thing simply because I live and breathe. 

However, sometimes I think I've missed the point or my ideas have become veiled. Stifled. Perhaps I have settled. Even if it is just for today. 

It gives me heartache. 

Stories.

I've always been interested in the stories we're told. How do these stories effect each of us and what we can do it? When it comes right down to it, our life seems like one of those plot arcs we learn in primary school. There's always beginnings, climaxes, and an end. The cycle keeps going and all this stuff that goes on between each beginning and end is the most important.

I don't think we always realize how much our life resembles a story. We just live the day to day grind and most of the time we think that if we aren't dead then we've achieved something. But what are we truly achieving if everyday looks like the next? If we aren't letting certain incidents in our life to push us further towards that climax? I would never presume to say that then your life isn't worth anything, of course it is, but it makes me wonder about the story. How does it look? Where is each climax?

Perhaps it's the eternal optimist that resides in me that truly believes that life will always get better. That things can change and we don't have to accept things as they are. People will always surprise you if you let them. I believe this, but sometimes I wonder how it's truly affecting my life? If at all.

So, how do we live most of the time? Do we live with this constant idea that things will change and get better? That people are beautiful things at their core? Or do we let the daily grind get in the way?

So, I'm here asking - what does you story look like? What does mine look like?