For the past several days it has taken me around an hour of staring at a blank screen, fiddling with the guitar, checking Facebook, and reflecting on random memories to be able to write a post. I am not sure why, but that has happened several times in the past almost year. There will be a week when I can knock out a post in five minutes because something inspired me that afternoon. Then there will be a week when I find myself dreading the task of writing because I just want to relax and go to bed. Maybe it is because my mind and body have been consistently occupied these past few days working on home things that I don’t allow the brain to drift onto more creative paths. My thoughts are pragmatic as a reflection of my daily routine. Yet, there were days when I barely did anything and I still had the same trouble writing.
As life goes there are the ebbs and flows. It is a constant theme in my writing because I feel it is a constant of life. Sometimes we are up and sometimes we are down. And I think it is what we do when we are down that builds our character. Even if I am unhappy for a time, I know that I will eventually be happy again and vice versa. Emotions don’t seem to change anything. But actions change everything.
Thomas Jefferson is attributed to saying, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” The paraphrase of that quote that you may have heard is, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Despite his personal character flaws, it is still a good quote and an accurate one. For too many years in my youth, I had dreams of various professions, places I’d be, and people I’d be around. Perhaps it was my privilege and high schooler naivety but I had a false notion while stepping into this world that things just happened to people. I would go to college and people would be calling me to offer me a job. I would work hard at a job and expect the boss to offer me a raise or promotion. Surely, everyone could see that I was qualified. I didn’t have to tell them or show them. It was a glamorous false sense of identity. And it took a lot of down moments to accept that it was all up to me.
Nothing will happen in my life unless I make it happen. And everything in my life is my responsibility. There is no blame to anyone else. Yet, there are many people that will help me out if I ask. But I have to ask.
When I am in a slump of one sort of another, I know that a peak will eventually get here. But I also know that I need to take action in order to find those peaks again.
So when I'm having a tough time thinking about something to write about, I just stick it out. Sometimes it takes one minute to come up with an idea and an hour to write it. Sometimes it takes two hours to think of an idea and five minutes to write it. Whether or not a day is easy, I know that tomorrow may be drastically different. But I will survive today if I choose to stick to the goal and take the first step until the last.