On Not Knowing What I am Doing

Okay, ten minutes...go!

I gave myself a little push, said "Take ten minutes and just write something, then stop!" I have avoided those types of exercises in the past, because I hated the idea of having to stop on an artificial deadline. Then I thought "Yeah, but isn't all of life on some kind of deadline?"

Totally derailed my train of thought. No, not derailed, wrong word, let us say redirected onto a different track. I avoided this stuff in the past because it seems to me in the past so much of the angst I feel about getting things done is predicated on deadlines, because I have always been a firm believer in the "work on it until it is finished" approach, not the "work on it until the timer says to stop working on it".

I once worked with a gentleman who often joked that "There's never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over!". At which point everyone laughs heartily and says stuff like "Good one!" or "What a kidder!" The real problem was that he believed it, and acted accordingly. The slapdash approach to doing anything drives me nuts, and that was a particularly bad example. Wait, it is a good example of what is a bad example. It always frustrated me that if we just took the time to do it right the first time, which may take a little bit longer than rushing through something, we wouldn't have to waste time doing something over, and thereby wasting more time and resources.

It still gets on my nerves. I have struggled mightily with this problem, in the workaday world. Everything is linked to efficiency, which is tied to productvity which (you saw this coming) is linked to money.

Yeah, okay, we all want to make money. This is an unavoidable fact of immersion in a money economy. The catch to that is it ends up being about pursuing the money to keep making money, which repeats ad nauseaum.

Earlier tonight (the night I am writing this) I saw a short video called "The Resolution Will Not Be Televised" by Jay Smooth*. In it, he says "My eighth resolution would be, Spend as much time as possible doing one thing at a time". Hells to the yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about! I would love to do that because it fits in with my natural inclination. It fits in with what makes me focused and comfortable: being able to do one thing at a time, and do it well. Therein lies my greatest calm, my inner peace. Inner peace: a beautiful butterfly which has yet to alight on my soul.

And that, dear readers, is my ten minutes. Fifteen, actually, because I had to fix the links, but still...

*It's on his blog, illdoctrine.com, a 'hip-hop video blog' hosted by the aforementioned Mr. Smooth (grin). I found quite good. A special thanks to the lurvely Anndi at transition, for bringing Jay to my attention. Word, Anndi!