Making time for what you want
I’ve been in New York for the past week visiting family, eating, walking, going to plays (Grey Gardens – yawn; Spring Awakening – fabulous), walking, playing cards with my uncles, walking through Soho, eating, walking, buying a new pair of MBTs, and walking in Central Park. A satisfying week hanging out in one of my favorite cities.
My first morning home, I woke up vibrating with anxiety. I’d gone to NYC in the middle of a major redesign of my business – new name, new website, new logo. Just a fluke of scheduling and my utter inability to figure out the best time to take a break. Consequently, I’d not only “lost” a week on the biz redesign, I’d lost my momentum, which was much worse. I could hardly bear the tension I was feeling: on one hand there were the deadlines I myself had set with the usual difficulties and delays; on the other there was my blank, sluggish mind. I tried all the strageties that usually work: sleeping in, getting up early, going to the gym, reading voraciously, going back to the gym, taking a walk, going to the office, working from home, drinking a lot o’ tea, sticking to water, journaling, not journaling, talking about it, suffering in silence.
Nothing.
Always precarious, the teeter-totter in my mind had shifted from “of course I can” (hear this in the voice of Glynda the good witch) to “who do you think you are?” (“and your little dog, too!”). Let’s say a fond farewell to my sense of purpose and focus. It must have been my fuzzy-headed jetlag that had driven my favorite quote from authors Steve Chandler and Sam Beckwith out of my mind. Instead, I was stuck trying to create just the right space in my routine into which creativity, focus and copious free time would automatically pour. Waiting for just the right moment, the right feeling, so I’d want to do what I needed to do. Waiting for hours of time to free up. Waiting for Godot.
This makes me wince.
You know this song, I know you do: Every tiny task keeps expanding to fill the time available. Then they started exceeding the time avaiable. Then they started multiplying and turning up everywhere like tribbles on the Enterprise. There is no question of boldly going anywhere. Soon the whole question of time triggers hopelessness and a desire to watch Dancing with the Stars. This lead to more hopelessness – how could it not? It causes a sort of pointlessness hangover. You get more anxious and more stuck. You become convinced your day is measureably shorter than other people’s.
Lucky for me, this always makes me reach for a frame drum, which I learned to play a few years ago. Playing it always makes something shift. This time, I didn’t even have to touch it. As I reached for it I thought “How did I ever find the time to learn to play this?” I was just as busy then as I am now, yet I commited to practice every day, no matter what. I stared at it and I remembered: I wanted to play this drum, more than I wanted anything – sleep, food, vacation time that wasn’t dedicated to workshops. Then I followed through, even if practicing was only 5 minutes a day, even if it freaked out my nearest and dearest (and it did). Soon, an hour and a half was flying by everyday and without losing anything I cared about. I was flying all over the country to study with top players.
It was a fun few years. And, it caused nary a ripple in the pond of my life. My business was booming, I was energized and happy. Same thing when I started exercising – I wanted to be healthy and fit so I commited to doing what it took. I had to replace my physical torpor with dialy exercise and that led to the 11 hours a week I now spend at the gym. Happily. I didn’t have that much time available when I started and I don’t now. The only possible conclusion: time is not what’s required. Desire leading to commitment is. I still remember the first time I heard someone play a frame drum. I had to learn it. I remember the first time I saw my pilates teacher: Tall, muscular, in graceful control of every muscle. Whatever I could have of that, I wanted more than I wanted sleeping in or not looking like a fool.
So, what was I doing, trying to push away the details of life to make a hole in time for the work has so captivated and challenged me? I had it backwards: Nature abhors a vacuum, but she makes way for a passionate commitment. I made one. You’re reading part of it. What a relief! And just in time, as I was running out of tea. Here’s the Chandler-Beckwith quote I alluded to earlier, the one that has made all the difference:
“Discipline is remembering what you want.”