I was blogging daily and loving it. Sometimes, I even posted twice a day. Then I went on a business trip and blogged once over two days.
When I got back from the business trip, I left three hours later for a weekend in the country and didn't blog for three days straight.
When I came back, I was exhausted, under the weather and under the gun of a VERY big deadline. A week went by...no blog.
Here's the best part: for the last 2 days, I've been ready to blog again. But every time I *think* about blogging, my brain tells me that I have nothing to say.
My brain is lying.
My brain thinks that I have to have my blog clear and planned in my head before I write it. But that's never how writing goes. For that matter, it's never how life goes. No matter what ideas I have in my head of how something will go, should go or shouldn't go, the way it actually happens has only a occasional resemblance to the events I imagine.
So how does my blog actually get written? It gets written when I type norasimpson.blogspot.com into my browser, click on "new post" and place my fingers on my keyboard. Once my fingers are in place, they begin to type words...words I like, words I don't like, words that engage me, words that annoy me. But either way, once those words begin to appear, my brain stops quibbling with imaginary blog demons and starts engaging with real thoughts, sentences and paragraphs.
The funny thing is, when my brain is still in its blog demon quibbler mode, it can take me awhile to remember that criticizing a non-existent blog is a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY.
This morning, when I finally remembered that blogs don't get written by sitting and thinking "No, that's not a good enough topic...and no, THAT'S not a good enough topic either," it suddenly occurred to me that if I wanted to actually have a post on the blog, I needed to stop worrying, thinking and criticizing so that I could start typing. And now here we are...a blog post.
But this blog post isn't just about remembering that writer's block comes from thinking too much about writing. It's about remembering that life blocks can often come from thinking too much about life. When I stop imagining how life will go and just start living it, amazing things happen...things I never could have predicted. But my brain thinks it's a fortune-teller. And it tells me all kinds of things about all kinds of situations before they happen.
"Watch out for this, Nora."
"Be careful of that, Nora."
"You don't want him to think that about you."
"You don't want to say that to her."
It's all pointless worry based on the notion that if I don't plan it all out, somehow I'll "do it badly." But it is precisely those voices of worry, fear and self-criticism that either keep me from engaging with life or acting like a jerk to other people. Whatever the "it" is that I'm concerned I will do badly is generally the least important detail of the situation.
The it will get done. If I do it badly, I'll go back and mess with it till it's better. If I can't make it better alone, I'll ask for help. If I do it well, I'll move onto the next thing. In any of these situations, the most important issues are
(1) that I show up for the "it"
(2) that I treat others with kindness and love as I do "it"
(3) that I treat myself with kindness and love as I do "it"
At the end of the day, being willing to do something "badly" is a great way to trick my brain into getting out of the way so that I can plug into life, show up for action and be loving to myself and others.
In fact, the original title of this blog (before I started messing with it) was "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
Now go do some things badly! And let me know how they go!
