Ok
Here we are – day 26 of ‘UK Lockdown’ and I have finally got enough head space to start a blog that I have been planning for a couple of years. It is embarrassing really. I talked a lot about doing it, I planned the subject matter and I knew exactly who I wanted to connect with – and yet when I came to sit at the computer, there was always something much more interesting or better to do and so it never got done. Much like clearing my wardrobe out, having a spring clean or actually attempting to keep the house clean – I just never settled enough, had the time, the focus or actually the discipline to do it. I always wanted to – but I just seemed to get ‘itchy pants’ when ever I sat down in front of a writing implement and it always seemed much easier to go and do something totally vacuous and non value-add instead.
To quote Rogers and Hammerstein however, ‘you start at the very beginning’ – and so here I am. Just starting with one step – after all, the journey of a million miles does start with one foot in front of the other. Each step is important as it represents a shift from the previous to the current, and if you have enough momentum, it can take you to the next step – or, the future. I guess each step in itself can be considered a goal and a means to something – whether it is mustering the strength to get out of bed, getting dressed in your oilskins to go and feed the horses in the depths of winter, or, if you happen to be Captain Tom Moore, completing 100 laps of your garden to fund raise for the NHS.
Taking the first step is often the scariest and I guess that is why a lot of us hesitate, ponder, mooch around a bit, get itchy, stare a lot, walk back and forth and generally consider every other opportunity than the one that we are facing. In this enforced Corvid ‘quiet time’ we now face, I am recognising – and I have to say with a huge amount of horror – that my typical MO is to procrastinate. To dance around, get ‘itchy’ and to avoid facing the task in hand, no matter how many times I write it in my ‘book of things to do’, or read the multiple post-it notes telling me of my self imposed deadlines. I cannot remember how many times I have ‘put things off’ – simple and easy things, things that I couldn’t face, or that I couldn’t bear to start. And yet once completed, that dreaded task was actually incredibly simple and took minutes, not the hours of sweaty-brow stress that I predicted.
So here I am, ready or not, completing the first of many blogs. I’ve done it and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve got that lovely feeling of having conquered something that I have been putting off – and it feels really good.
Until the next one