Stop! Sucking! Day 7: Just…stop it
It’s 7:55 as I write this.
I got some work done today; not enough. (Never—or rarely—enough.)
Anxiety kept stalking me like the then-state-of-the-art creeping VFX death that passed over the Jews in The Ten Commandments. I guess I have the lamb’s blood on my door; things got chilly and a little dark, but I’m still here.
At one point during the day, I told The BF I absolutely was staying here tonight. Absolutely. I have my 8am coaching call tomorrow morning, a shrink appointment just after, and that Never Ending Tower of Work to attack blindfolded and barefoot with my blunt & rusty pickaxe.
And then, slightly later in the day, something snapped. I called him back: on the landline, and then the cell. Had he made other plans yet? (He had not, if you don’t count taking the trash cans to the curb.) Would he like for me to come over still? (He would; we could watch TV-on-DVD in bed, he said.)
Or we could talk. Or we could just hang out.
I would be over at 8, I said.
It’s 8:02 now, and it will be more like 8:20 by the time I pack it up. But pack, I will, so I’ll keep it short. (Like you don’t have enough other stuff of mine to read?)
Do me a favor, okay? Whatever you’re doing right now, just stop. For a second. And ask yourself if it’s the thing you want-with-a-capital-”W” to be doing, or just something you said you’d do. Promised you’d do. Are doing to avoid something else more meaningful you could be doing.
I know it’s silly of me to even suggest that you, spending this time at your computer or staring at your iPhone or your crackberry, might not be making the best, most you-ful use of your time. And hell, maybe reading this post, and whatever you’re going to do just after, are the exact perfect things you should be doing.
I’m just checking. We’ve got to stop and look out for each other, you and I…
xxx
c
Image by Hot Tuna via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.
TOPICS: 21 day salutes, Add new tag, change, Stop! Sucking!.
11 Comments, Comment or Ping
GirlPie
So should we call your BF and say you’ll be about 30 minutes late and not to worry…?
Good advice, but as I catch up on my work here at 9:04 as the BoyPie calls out “wanna watch Family Guy with me and make farty noises at the TV?” I implore you: please pay as much attention to your Face-Time audience as you do to us lucky Screen-Time audience. He’s lucky and (he takes out the trash, so) you’re lucky too.
Just looking out for you…
“Be right there BoyPie, make sure Stewie’s not armed!”
Apr 16th, 2008
sizzle
For serious. I agree.
Apr 16th, 2008
Jeremy
Wait a minute. this is too meta for me.
What I was doing, at the exact moment you asked me to ask, was reading you. And for sure that was what I Wanted to be doing. In fact, I didn’t want to stop at all.
So, I’m going to give myself a few minutes to start doing something else, and then see how I get on with stopping That.
OK?
Apr 17th, 2008
Dyana
great one–I just STOPPED and am going for a capital “W” Walk. Thank you. Dyana
Apr 17th, 2008
communicatrix
GirlPie - Alas, both The BF and I have turned into the kind of person who is perpetually running 15 - 145 minutes late with each other, so we kind of expect it. (Note: when there’s an engagement we’re trying to make that requires us to be there at a particular time, we’re much better at it.)
Last night, I got there w/in 30 minutes of when I said I would. A vast improvement, and a fine start.
Sizzle - Hard to argue with, huh? :-)
Jeremy - D’you know, I almost wrote “including this here post”? I’ve a feeling you’ve less a problem with obsessiveness and self-discipline than some of us. Erm.
Dyana - Dang, girl. You *are* an early riser.
Apr 17th, 2008
Dave G
Good reminder. It’s easy to get caught up in the overall forward momentum of life sometimes. I envision a giant stop sign when I do.
On a side note, your mention of 8:02 reminded me of the song “8:02 PM” by For Squirrels. I hadn’t listened to it in years, so thank you :-)
Apr 17th, 2008
communicatrix
I wonder if I just randomly named numbers, how many of them would be pop songs?
See, I usually think up weird things like that when I’m not well-rested; today is just the opposite.
Apr 17th, 2008
Andrew
When my brother and I were kids (or a lot younger, he has nine years on me) and we would fight, my dad would always tell us “Life is too short to be fighting all the time …”.
“Life is too short …” keeps coming back to me lately. Life is too short to keep spending it doing things you don’t Want to be doing … or responding to things in a way that makes them worse than they have to be.
All easier said than applied, of course … ;-) ….
Apr 17th, 2008
communicatrix
Word, dude.
It took a train running over me followed by a house being dropped onto me for me to wake up to that. And I STILL forget.
Of course, what your dad probably also meant was “_My_ life is too short to have to put up with the two of _you_ fighting all the time.”
Just sayin’… :-)
Apr 17th, 2008
Mary Ellen
I Want to be reading your blog more than time allows–it’s the sort of soul-feeding activity I now seek out as if my life depended on it. Which my soul kinda does as an antidote for the daily innundation of speed, junk, fog (no, not drugs…noxious elements of this morning’s grocery shopping trip). And now, with my very first moleskine notebook (yippee for that 30% off coupon at Dick Blick) and my trusty 6B pencil and kneaded eraser, out to the yard I go to have some sketching fun. Definitely Want to do that, too. Your blog, for me, champions these ways of spending my time. Have you ever read Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”? Like you, another visionary and champion among us whose writings I treasure.
Apr 18th, 2008
communicatrix
Well, one can always make exceptions for salubrious activities :-)
Congrats on the Moleskine. I go back and forth on loving them. Meaning, I adore them, but they’re so beautiful (and dear) that I get a little freaked about just doodling in them. Did they cost less in Hemingway’s day? I mean, certainly they did, but adjusted for inflation?
I did read–and buy–Mary Oliver, on your reco. You recommender of all things good, you.
Apr 18th, 2008