If you’d thought I’d perished, fear not, for phoenixes rise from the ashes, and I from my bedroom once in a blue moon. What can I say? This sedentary state of mind and body takes its toll. But before I start quoting Confucius and reading palms I’ll adopt a more grounded tone of voice.
So why have I really refrained from writing regularly these days?
The short answer is, well…. I’m not quite sure. Yet, if you take time to look beneath the surface there’s a plethora of complexities working their magic on my blood cortisol levels. From a lack of motivation to feelings of inadequacy, in these last few months I’ve had both the knockbacks and privileges of feeling them all.
If you are taking a break from something you once enjoyed then don’t beat yourself up about it and demand yourself to get back on the horse. Let the horse rest for a while (or just buy a new one).
Digging a little deeper I can say that for a while I didn’t feel the urge to share my constant ramblings with anyone, be it friends, family or the next door neighbour. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Writing had lost its appeal for a while. Whether I was too preoccupied with the day job or simply just told myself this, one way or another my relationship with writing was strained.
I think that’s part of the problem, at least in my experience, is that I’ve found that when I do something with the aim of trying to impress someone else that ‘thing’ loses its appeal and so I lose motivation to keep doing ‘it’.
Whereas, when I find something to do which interests me and is for me wholeheartedly, I find that my motivation does not waver in the same way, if at all.
And I think this is something I’ve only really come to realise this year. I don’t want to write to impress others, I want to write to enjoy the process of writing for myself. There’s a poignant difference in this realisation.
Do you do something in particular for the approval of others or do you do it for the fulfillment in yourself?
We spend our lives searching for ‘happiness’, thinking that our external reputations = success = happiness. But what if this is wrong? What if the recipe for happiness is intrinsic-growth = happiness?
Who knows, all I know is that I need a holiday……(where I can bask like a lizard and stress myself out on my sun lounger, pondering pensively within the murky depths of my mind. Just as I’m doing now, lying horizontally with my laptop on my windpipe. The comforts of working from home, eh?)
Overall, I don’t think I’ve given much detail as to why I’d stopped writing for so long, but one thing more important to note is that I didn’t stop permanently, because I would like to get back into it. Starting now.
And if you’re the only sad sod who’s bothered to read it this far then you must be in a far worse state than I am! Hahaha kidding!
Lookout for my next post which will most likely be about…..TBD hehe
The Neon Squid 