Yesterday: A long look in the mirror
I was a lazy Christian, but you could never call me that. How could you? I was visible in every church service, and never lost the opportunity to lend a hand in the administration of things within the church. If you needed help with the drama department, you could call on me. If you needed help with choreography, ballet dance and teenagers, you could count on me. You could count on me to give some advice on spiritual and academic matters. No, you wouldn’t call me lazy. Not at all. Not while in church, anyway.
Yet, I was.
One day, many years ago, I woke up with a distaste in my mouth; I didn’t like myself. I did not like my life and I did not like the person I had turned out to be: a lazy woman.
Ouch! It hurts to have described myself with such words –even though it’s a past tense. You can only imagine how painful the process that led to the discovery must have been for me and my seemingly picture-perfect personality.
Everybody loved Sandra. Everyone liked me. I had a Yes for almost every request. It seemed I could multitask and help many people get on track with their objectives. I talked smart, and people could easily connect with me. Yet, this self-righteous bubble burst open before me, and the day that it did, my eyes saw red.
I woke up that morning and looked around me; my kids were in bed when they should be in school and so was my hubby when he should be at work. It was a troubling sight.
What the heck was happening to my life? I felt like someone watching her boat slip away into sea while yet ashore. Not only did my life feel like the sand swallowed inch after inch by the retreating ocean tide, it also felt like I was solely responsible for the waste, loss, and despair that I perceived around me.
Before I went to bed the day before, I knew the next day was going to be that way because school fees had not been paid, and my kids were warned not to attend classes. There was no fuel in our car, no airtime on the phones, and no cash at hand for transportation so hubby had to wait for his client to come pick him up for his private real estate business. And what was my excuse? I had no paid employment at the time, and my writing business was just a taunting wish somewhere in my head.
Now, don’t get me wrong –I was already a heck of a talent. I had worked in four different organizations and even consulted privately for small startups and NGOs; I had a lot of experience and was committed to lifelong learning. I was a reader, a writer, and a speaker –at least in the little corner of my world.
Yet, I was a lazy Christian. How was that even possible?
I had no push whatsoever. I had become nonchalant.
The clients I ever met were those my hubby spoke to concerning me. I was living a life far less than my potential, and the worst thing was that it was very obvious. During those scanty rare moments where I would meet with clients to discuss about their social enterprise, business plans or raw ideas, they would marvel at the brilliance of my thoughts, the solutions I proffered, my keen sense of observation into their ideas and my ability to string it together into executable tasks. In those moments, I always showed spectacular insights, and putting it all down into a document was the crème de la crème of meeting client’s expectation –I was a pro at making them look good on paper. After all, I was born to write.
But, that was as far as my potential went.
I had been unconsciously marking time for a special moment which would launch me into a consistent and well-paying professional writing business. I knew almost everything there was to know about blogging, freelance writing, ghostwriting, copywriting, podcasting, and the world of internet research. I read every new blog posts by the very best of them, and surveyed thousands of user reviews and testimonies for different types of online tools and programs available for writers. I was book smart, but that was it.
The evil triplets of indecision, laziness and procrastination were the bane of my existence.
How did a Holy Ghost filled tongue talking Christian get to be that way?
Where was my advantage?
Was indecisiveness going to stay with me forever?
When will I ever procrastinate on procrastination?
Where is the cure for laziness?
These questions led me on a path totally unpredicted, a path disguised in pain, a path of freedom and profit...but then, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'll let you in on the cogitations of this once-upon-a-lazy-Christian...
See you tomorrow?