Tag: Writing

A Facebook status update from one minute ago

Walt Disney Legacy Award criteria
Screen shot from a friend’s Facebook feed last night. Real life in real time.

 

A Facebook status update from one minute ago

For curious minds only please…

One day while traveling i was very concerned about something.

It’s a first world problem that is as trivial as it gets…

What if my travel schedule made it impossible to write the five daily blogs?

So i wrote an extra day’s worth (5) the morning before departing on a long flight.

Worst case didn’t happen and i was able to write like normal the next morning.

This meant that there was now a surplus of one day.

Over time, usually on a particularly productive/inspiring weekend, after writing the normal five blogs, i’d keep writing.

Eventually this led to having a one week surplus (35 posts, or seven days multiplied by five extra posts for each website).

Somewhere between year two and three writing got even more intense and a 30-day surplus was created. i wasn’t writing to build a surplus, it’s just that i couldn’t stop writing on some days.

It was not uncommon to write 10-12 hours on a Saturday and 10-12 hours on Sunday too. A weekend like that might produce 25 – 50 posts (five to ten days worth).

Between years three and four, the surplus grew to 90 days and finally capped at 100 days ahead, a 500 blog post surplus.

Crazy.

What i’m about to write today (Aug 19) won’t go live until November 27.

It’s quirky.

It’s real.

And until it happened, it was also impossible.

So, you know those things you dream about but self-talk yourself out of?

Here’s to challenging you to stop saying you can’t.

How’s this for impossible…

It’s been 2,332 days in a row writing 5 daily, differently-themed posts. Then add in another 100 day surplus, and that’s 12,160 blog posts.

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Upsides have downsides and vice versa

Apple Notes writing app
Created documents in Apple’s Notes app so i could write in Glacier Park.

 

There’s an inherent risk in trying anything new.

There’s also opportunity for a breakthrough as well.

What’s our risk tolerance, if we were brutally honest?

The upside to being able to write without an internet connection is the fact that you can do it from anywhere using just an iPhone.

The downside is the price you pay when you return to civilization and all the catching up required to go from analog to cyberspace.

It’s taken three days to adjust from doing things differently last week in Montana.

Taxing?

Yes.

To the point of wondering if it was/is worth it.

But traveling without a laptop last week was a huge first. Not to mention no cellular signal except at Glacier’s eastern entrance – nowhere in the 1,000,000 acre park, and no ATT in West Glacier.

Digital withdrawal?

Kinda.

With an upcoming trip to France (leaving in 20 days), the Glacier experiment has boosted my confidence.

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Promises made equal promises broken

Midlife Celebration
A serious wakeup call may be the only hope we have of changing.

 

Imagine taking 30 years to fulfill a promise to ourselves (and our family).

That’s how long it took me.

The guilt would come and go until it literally it disappeared altogether.

Thank goodness for a serious midlife wakeup call.

Baby Boomers suffer from chronic self-bullying.

Lies.

Inspiring promises we made to ourselves but never kept. Never delivered on.

Imagine a rose bush full of wonderful buds, but for some reason, the buds never open. Ever.

The original promise was in 1979 as a college Junior. “i promise to write a book about the most important things in life, for my children”.

i never intended to become a prolific blogger. In fact, it was consistent failure (and not writing consistently) that led to a crazy, self-imposed writing challenge on April Fools Day 2009… write five differently-themed blogs (about balance) for 100 straight days.

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Embellishment and editorial license

Sally Hogshead Fascinate
Sally Hogshead, creator of “How to Fascinate”

 

What follows is my opinion from 15+ years of being on the inside listening and observing professional speakers and writers of all sorts.

Quite remarkable isn’t it?

All the advice on the web and in print. Anyone can publish anything.

Most of us aren’t writers. So we have no clue at a conscious level about embellishment and editorial license.

Embellishing is easy. And hard to disprove. So we believe everything we read.

But do these writers and speakers practice what they preach?

Rarely.

But there are a few.

Very rare.

PS. Posts like this come along occasionally because of their cathartic value.

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iNotice a lot of things

Facebook inspirational message

 

iNotice a lot of things.

And write about how they help or hinder us. Five daily blogs. Each one a different theme. Each one a critical component to balance.

Like the fact that we race to get started in the morning. We race to get to work. We race to do our work. Then we race home to do the evening routine.

We plan on slowing down and rearranging our priorities at some point.

We forget that we are in charge and need to create the “some point”.

Someday is not a day of the week, nor a future date on our calendar. Someday is a lie.

But we are too busy to notice.

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