Lyrics: “Punches” ~ Frank Turner, 2022
When I thought about if and how to write about this topic, my first draft – in my head while in my car – went something like “You know this thing you postpone… […] You don’t? Just me then?”. In a blatant attempt, I think, to distance myself a bit from this mentally taxing behaviour to postpone ‘things’ I dread. And I know I’m also distancing myself from it by calling it this vague ‘thing to do’, but I admit I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to get around to it.
Anyway, let’s at least be personal. I postponed something for the longest time. Like literally the longest time. And it wasn’t even a big ‘to-do’. (to not use that bland term again). At first I did have good reasons to put it off. After a while I didn’t anymore. But then I felt embarrassed and guilty and all that crap for putting it off. So I put it off even longer. No, of course that didn’t make sense. But that’s where my mind was/is. Sometimes anyway. And the longer I postponed it the bigger it became in my head. How others would judge me for postponing it so long. How I already judged myself. Anyway…
Today I finally did it and it was fine. No-one judged. No one berated me for putting it off for so long. Everyone was friendly and full of understanding. No big deal! At all!
Then of course that obnoxious voice in my head started whispering how stupid I had been for worrying so much about it in advance. I mostly managed to shut her up though. Go me!
Different topic: I threw out most of my started and then abandoned notebooks / journals of all kinds this weekend. I know a lot of ‘experts’ state that writing or journaling by hand and not by typing on a keyboard is the better (only right way) to do it. Because writing by hand helps your mind work out things differently / better. Whatever. I tried. Oh God did I try. But I’ve got terrible penmanship if I’m writing quickly and looking back on something indecipherable after a few days, frustrated me to no end. But making an effort to write more legible defeats my purpose of getting my thoughts down and out of my head as quickly as possible. So I’m back to giving a simple text file journal another go. If I’m not putting it all down HERE 🙂
But I did also start a new notebook for the “what went well today? what are you grateful for?” bits I wanted to keep going. Whenever I did that as part of any set daily journaling routine, I had such a hard time to not also drift off into writing down what didn’t go well and where I messed up. So I hope a journal just for the “Positive Stuff for Negative People” (inspired by a Frank Turner album, of course) might do the trick.
That’s it for today. Three posts in a row. Wow. I had the worst night of sleep in a long time and I have an important meeting to attend at work tomorrow afternoon, so I better head to bed soon to be well rested and less stressed tomorrow.
