I needed an easy win today. I went to the workshop. It didn’t quite work out the way I was hoping it would.
(more…)Tag: Life’s Challenges
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August 27, 2023
“I have to give this a go,” I keep telling myself. My parents reiterate the same to me when I speak with them. “If I don’t try this, I’ll always wonder what could’ve come of it.” So, I’m doing it. Most of the time, it’s pretty good. Sometimes, I get nervous.
I’m an anxious person, that I know. It’s hard for me to let things go, whether that’s a mistake I made or a new tool that I want. I fixate on what might be or could’ve been instead of what’s all in front of me. I know, truly, that I have everything I could need and more. If moving all that shit over the workshop hasn’t given me any insight into just how much I have…my optometry benefits renew in September.
Diving into this project, that of making and selling handcrafted wooden (mostly) goods, as I’ve done this summer, has been really good for me. It’s given me a focus. My mom keeps reminding me that it’s a passion of mine and it also happens to be something I’m good at. Her gentle encouragement is a result of my complete inability to accept a compliment or praise from my parents. Before now, the closest that I’d gotten to woodworking was holding the flashlight for my dad. Occasionally, I’d swing a hammer — the rusty one.
What’s really been bothering me these last few days is the cost. It’s cost a lot to get this project off the ground. While I do feel like I’m making gains, I’m the one financing all of it. Nothing is selling right now. There is no money coming in.
Yet. This is a tortoise and hare tale.
To be fair, my advertising and marketing strategy is piss poor. I’ve been spending more time trying to get myself in a position to make things. I’ve been making things, too, just not enough. There are a few pens that I need to photograph and post pictures of, though. I don’t read all the emails that I get sent about how to grow your small business. Who’s got the time for that?
It feels like I’m having trouble situating myself. Where, in all of this, do I belong? Squarely in the centre. I’m the bubble in the middle of the mind map, the one that looks like a cloud and has bold letters in it. From this position, you can only see out in front of you, not what’s beside or behind. Everything is drawn out from here and remains connected.
Right now, it’s hard for me to identify the gains that I’ve made. I’m seeing the forest, not the trees. Wood is crucial to the success of this enterprise.
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August 8, 2023
I must’ve gone on for at least half an hour, if not 45-minutes, while we were driving back from PEI, about whether I should post links to my blog posts on my Instagram Stories. It’s been on my mind for about a week. Every time I ran through an argument, I ended up at the same conclusion: I don’t know.
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July 18, 2023
The last couple of days haven’t been bad but things haven’t felt like they’re going right. It’s as if all of my actions are being tempered by a tension band. Nothing is impossible but it’s a little harder and sometimes I just don’t have the strength to follow through.
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July 11, 2023
I thought that this would be the week that I finally started getting on with getting on with things. As happens every year, I have big plans for this summer. Over the last few days, I’ve been ordering stuff online trying to get things in so that I can start working on the things that I want to be getting on with.
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June 3, 2023
I’ve come to really enjoy my weekends. They seem to be when I get to spend time doing what I want to do, largely uninterrupted. I’m starting to try to pack too much into my weekends, though.
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May 28, 2023
Shortly after getting out of bed this morning, I put on some coffee and started my morning pages. While writing, I couldn’t stop thinking about making a bowl today. I had purchased a couple of bowl blanks in the fall and was waiting until I took my workbench outside to work on them. So, that’s how I spent my afternoon.
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May 26, 2023
Have some people grown up without consequences? I feel like I’ve been checked, in some way, for my actions ever since I was a child. Nowadays, I’m more responsible for those consequences than are others. I’m not able to forgive myself without having paid for my indiscretions.
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May 12, 2023
“If it’s not a, ‘Hell, yes!’, it’s a ‘No’.”
I think it was Adam Grant who said that. Today, it resonates. I’m wavering on a decision I’ve been mulling over for the better part of a year. I’m trying to decide what I want to focus on over the next year in terms of my career development.
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May 6, 2023
Casey Neistat talks about ADD in one of his recent videos. The way he describes it, as the ability to hyper focus but unable to commit to anything long term, resonated with me. I feel like that’s how I am, too.
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April 29, 2023
What is your definition of success?
I don’t know what mine is.
I do know that I don’t feel successful. That’s not to say that I’m unhappy with my life or the way things are. I have very good things in my life that I’m incredibly thankful to have. Mostly, those “things” are people. A few others are activities. Exactly two are cats. I have a good life and I have privilege.
What I’m missing, rather, what I think I’m missing is success. This must be a function of achievement. I have accomplishments, sure, but I don’t know what I’ve achieved in my life. Maybe, too, I don’t know what I’m going to achieve in my life. Or, I don’t know how to assess my past, current, and future achievements so I don’t count them.
Is success simply chasing milestones? Do you set your sights on something, work to achieve or arrive at it, and then look ahead again? Is success a state you’re in or something that you have? Are success and contentment mutually exclusive?
I don’t know. Do you?