When I left teaching, my life drifted
for quite a while, not because I couldn't think of something for which to use
my time. On the contrary, I could think of dozens of uses for time, but to what
purpose. The idea of purpose kept nagging at me. I didn't seem to have any, and
the realization ticked me off.
No longer stranded on a foggy, deserted beach, I took up writing again where I’d left
off years before. Oh, there were no screenplays or commercials. There was no
research for PBS documentaries on spec. I no longer did corporate writing. Instead, I began slowly by learning to
write specifically for children.
What does this have to do with alarms,
structured lives, and fulfilling one’s life dreams? Everything!
My
first desire as a child was to write. I came to a place where my need to
fulfill that purpose, held so long within a tiny corner of my being, refused to
remain in the shadows. My life was worth more than early retirement,
disability, or relaxation.
My writing brought me here, to this new
cosmos of cyber energy and virtual reality, completely peopled and conveniently
housed. I made an interesting personal discovery the other day; one which I
intend to do something about.
I’ve
watched my day skewered by bits of life’s battle with time. Errands, email,
writing prompts, publication submissions, social media networks, you name it.
This goes on each day as I run to catch up. I stopped running today. I took a
nap when I was tired.
I got three poems out to, for me, a new
market. I singled out a new submission to another market for tomorrow. I didn’t
work any further my author’s page. That will happen some other time. I did get two
other blog posts done. I didn’t complete a guest post that I need soon.
Yesterday these unfinished items would
have nagged with the voice of guilt as I went to bed; today, not so much. I
made a decision to stop battling with time. I can do what I can do. That
reality is the only one that matters. I don’t have to apologize to anyone for
not working 18 hours at my desk each day to complete goals I set for myself. I
only have to move the goals to eliminate the guilt.
Each
problem has both a solution and an opportunity; a solution to
correct the problem or minimize it; an opportunity to take something unexpected
from the problem and create a new project, attitude, viewpoint, or blessing.
So much of our day is taken up with the
business of others. Some of us choose to take up the business of ourselves and
what’s good for us. When we live at the behest of others, we only exist for ourselves. Existence isn’t
the same as living. Living takes energy, gives energy, and creates beauty.
Restructuring
life takes time and effort, but it pays for itself in the end. Lately, I've had little real time to write as I want to, dreamed about, and planned for.
That situation is about to change.
I’ll still blog, but my blogging will
have morphed into something new. I’ll be writing more poetry, more guest blogs
for other sites, and working far harder on my own books. And I’m looking forward
to this new avenue of endeavor.
The world is changing as am I. It’s my
hope that each of you will be along for the ride, however long I stay in the
saddle. Stay tuned for my announcement of things to come and places to go.
Until then,
Claudsy
