It has been several days since I have posted anything.
Unusual, in a way... and it has not been for the lack of trying.
I have (at least count) more than a dozen pretty well-developed drafts sitting in my "Drafts" folder on PeakD... these are all decent Ideas I took and ran with, got most of the way through... and then just didn't feel inspired to finish.
I know that I can use all the classic rationalizations like "I use writing as a catharsis" and then attribute the unfinished articles to the fact that they actually are "finished," in the sense of service as therapeutic tools.
For the most part, I have been working in the yard, because it is spring, and the weather has been particularly nice, and everything is "jumping" out there.
Aside from that, the yardwork is also a good catharsis.
It's also a way of procrastinating (albeit in a pretty functional sort of way) my way out of the business of getting my work done.
The "problem" I face is likely one many people face... as a self-employed "online entrepreneur" I technically speaking don't have to worry about "job security," but I do have to worry about the fact that my clients/customers are a market that increasingly face a rocky financial situation... and I'm not exactly selling essentials here.
Which brings me face to face — figuratively speaking — with the great "nemesis" of my life: Although I have been self-employed by choice for decades, I have to this day never been involved in anything that didn't end up being "diminishing returns for increased effort."
Of course, the current situation is outside my control.
And so was my work being outsourced to SE Asia, and so was my market being in an aging population dying off and so was most people switching to using phones to access the web, and so was market dominance by a large corporation, making me non-competitive and there's a very long list there.
The "Art of Not Getting Stuck" in this case refers to the ability to adapt to ongoing change. And part of that adaptation is the acceptance that while you may have a really good gig, the "expected lifespan" of good ideas seems to grow shorter and shorter with the passing of time.
And — as a self-professed rather "slow learner" — I tend to get a little stuck on realizing that by the time I have adapted and learned a new gig... that gig may already have become old news.
And so I go work in the yard instead, because trees and rocks and flowers seem to move more at "my speed."
Which brings me back to the memories of a conversation I had with one of my college professors — I went to Business School at UT Austin — who couldn't figure out why I was in business of all fields when my preferred state of being was "mostly stationary."
And that was true. It was true then, and it is still true now.
So I'm going to head off to do some more yardwork. And hopefully, I'll come back, feeling a little less stuck!
Thanks for reading, and have a great Sunday... what's left of it!
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Created at 20200419 13:41 PDT
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