Be Light | Learning When to Give Up
I'm giving up.
Inspiring, huh?
Really though, I've spent enough of my life holding on to things that should've been let go, prolonging efforts that should've been effortless, expecting greatness from less than great circumstances...
I'm practicing the art of giving up, and I'm starting with this blog.
Not the whole blog, but maybe the way I've been approaching the blog--or should I say The Blog, with a capitol "B," since it's reached monstrous proportions in the space in my heart where I hold my feelings of guilt/shame/not-good-enoughness.
The backstory is simple: I've always thought it'd be great to have a blog. Like, to have a beautiful, thriving, helpful, creative and consistent blog. And I've tried it a number of different times (I have more wordpress accounts than Kim Zolciak has kids), and quickly lost steam with each attempt.
This particular blog has been different. What I've lacked in consistency, I've made up for in longevity: archives go back to 2014--not bad!
Still, it's not uncommon for me to shame-spiral when I think about how much more I could be blogging ("not enough, not enough not enough"), or how much stricter I could be with myself about content management, etc.
(Ugh, I am the worst to myself).
Anyway, I got all fired up after reading The Happiness of Pursuit, by Chris Guillebeau (and I haven't shut up about it since, so if you're following me anywhere on the internet, you're already aware of my obsession), and I decided the time had come to really get serious about blogging. Because nothing will stoke the fire of imagination and passion in a writer like a strict regimen and content schedule, right?
That was for me to figure out.
So I created a 30 Day Challenge for myself: 30 Days | 30 Posts. The challenge was to write one blog post a day, for 30 days, following a specific content schedule:
Mondays: Yoga; Tuesdays: Books; Wednesdays: Recipes; and so on.
It started off alright, and gradually became less alright: after 10 days, I quit the challenge.
I gave up.
But that's not the whole story.
More of the story can be found in the sense of dread I felt at the thought of writing another "recipe" post. "Fucking busywork," my heart groaned.
Another little bit of the story lies in the lightness I felt after writing about my childhood puppy. "This is real and true," my heart sang.
And yet another piece of the story floats above the sand I laid out on, when I decided to skip posting altogether and go jump in the ocean instead. "You won't have a life to write about if you don't go out and live your life," my heart declared.
Some Things To Keep, Some Things To Let Go
After 10 days of my self-imposed challenge, I quit. I had learned what I needed to learn from the endeavor:
- I am not cut-out to write copy. Recipes, How-To's, Top Five's--Nope. It's okay--and it's good to know! It means I can take a load off and let it go. No more guilt allowed around this one.
- Story-writing still rings a bell in my heart. Still. And I don't know why this surprises me. It's been one of my truest, most consistent loves and strengths throughout my life. But when I burden myself with the guilt of all the should-be-doing's, I don't have much time or freedom to pursue any of my want-to-do's.
So here's what I'm giving up about this blog: all the should-be-doing's.
I am still going to post, but I am going to write, not blog. And maybe that will make for less Pinterest-friendly posts. Maybe it will bore readers looking for 500 words on How To Make Everything In You're Life Perfect.
But it won't feel like busywork.
I want to use this space in a more exciting and authentic, even if less frequent, way than posting quick copy that any basic blogger could write.
Because I'm no basic blogger. That's why I'm okay to give up trying to be one.
