Earlier this year I made a commitment to myself. I refer to it as a commitment for two particular reasons.
- I feel more of an obligation to keep my commitments than I do to keep resolutions
- I purposely did not commit till the New Year fever was past so that it would not have any ties to anything that remotely resembled a resolution
My commitment to myself was to do two things for just half an hour a day…at the very minimum. Read something, preferably a book, and write something.
I set out to achieve this by attending a local Friends of the Library book sale. I had grand ideas and at just $0.25 apiece on Saturday and $5 for a bag on Sunday (which, by the way, they let you fill to overflowing without making you buy a second bag… It’s almost ridiculous how many books they’ll let you “fit” into a bag), I was well on my way to keeping one of my commitments.
The second one was equally as easy to keep because in addition to loving to read I thoroughly enjoy writing as well. I just had to decide where I wanted write. I decided that I would keep it simple and start off with my physical journal, also because I wanted to preserve my good penmanship. One of my fears about doing so much on the computer is that my handwriting might deteriorate with less use (I have no scientific evidence to back up that fear so I think it can safely be categorized as an irrational one).
Writing in the morning just came so naturally. It’s as if in the morning I would wake up, not just with a fresh batch of God’s grace for the day but also with a new sense of creativity that was just brimming and bubbling to get out.
It makes me wonder what I may have lost all the days before I started this new habit, in the way of creative expression… Does that just stay inside and keep recycling until I let it out or does each days dose of creativity move on and get replaced by the following days own?
It’s too late to go back and change things so I move forward. I have no choice.
She Speaks is me taking my commitment to the internet. It won’t always be business talk because I’m not always about the business. It won’t always be personal, because some things are not meant for all the world to partake. It will however always be honest, always be true, and always be me… A snapshot of half an hour of my life on as close to a daily basis as I can make it.
I got lazy about writing on this site because I figured the podcast would do all the talking, what I realized is that through the podcast, you get to know my guests better but you don’t actually get to know me… So I’m opening up here, in the She Speaks column.
I’m currently doing a writing challenge where we have to write something everyday for 20 days (or maybe 21 days). I have failed at this particular challenge with this particular group about three times before this one so my hope is that by putting it out here, perhaps I will have more of an incentive to stay the course and complete the challenge (except of course on the days when I do the challenge in my physical journal instead).
Today’s challenge is to write for 20 minutes… just “brain dump” for twenty straight minutes without thinking about we’re writing. I initially thought it would be easy and twenty minutes didn’t seem like a long time but it actually is starting to feel more like an hour. I have gotten used journaling for half an hour but typing for twenty minutes seems like a much longer time.
Commitments are kept, resolutions seem to be much more easily broken.