I enjoy your writing immensely. Your posts stick with me long after I've read them. They're thought-provoking. I look forward to them in my inbox. Thanks for your insight!
Oh boy, what an absolutely great article....or blog, or whatever it's called these days. Things change....believe me, I know. I'm 86. However, you are SO RIGHT about accomplishing the things you want to do...that you even LOVE to do. I disconnected myself from housework and sang opera for 35 years. Wrote every day, anyway....poems. Now novels. THANK YOU! I feel justified.
I write at least 500 words a day. I draw every day. I go to the pool every day weather permitting. I read every day. I need to play my guitar and harmonickey every day.
Great post! I'm positively evangelical about spreading the word that willpower is a myth. Willpower is the bastard child of out of control individualism and Protestant work ethic.
To do lists are great if used correctly. By which I mean, focus on the items that are crossed off and praise yourself for being a productivity rock star. Not enough crossed off? Add a few items like getting out of bed, showering, brushing teeth, drinking water.
I do berate myself, but it’s like Mickey calling Rocky a bum. I do it bc I know I am a champion. Someday I will catch that dang chicken.
This is perfectly timed for me and this idea that we actually do what we like or get something out of, is very relevant to my analysis of life. But, if I buy into the idea that I really do what I like to do, which I do, then I really am a lazy lame-ass.
I have the means and methods to do what I say and think that I love: bike, hike, ski, climb, camp, eat-out, work in a rewarding stimulating environment, connect with friends and family and go to concerts, but most of the time I just end up sitting on the computer or computer adjacent device trying to figure out what's going on in the world. Not working. Scrolling.
Busy, busy, busy. What's up with that? I got tired just reading your article and barely made it to the end. I don't do word counts. I don't try to write every day, but my novel advances slowly but surely. No one is waiting for me to finish. It takes the time it takes. Committing to publishing one episode per week for my serialized novel, which appears tomorrow, is more than enough for me. I guess I'm wired differently. Living in Latin America, I learned the meaning of the word "mañana," which can mean tomorrow, but also means some unspecified time in the future. When is it going to be finished? Mañana. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the time you have to spend with friends and family. Forget about trying to cross anything else off your "to do" list.
Just wrote and had my 2,000th Blog published by The New York Times since 2019.
And earlier letters since 1977-----all non-paid..
Why aren’t they paying you?
Do you want to be my agent >
I can’t get them to publish me at all, so I don’t think I could be an effective one!
I could speak on your behalf and vice versa
Tell them I rite real gud and they should stop rejecting my submissions!
I enjoy your writing immensely. Your posts stick with me long after I've read them. They're thought-provoking. I look forward to them in my inbox. Thanks for your insight!
Thank you for your note! It makes me want to press on.
Needed this today, thank you
Oh boy, what an absolutely great article....or blog, or whatever it's called these days. Things change....believe me, I know. I'm 86. However, you are SO RIGHT about accomplishing the things you want to do...that you even LOVE to do. I disconnected myself from housework and sang opera for 35 years. Wrote every day, anyway....poems. Now novels. THANK YOU! I feel justified.
Thank you for letting me know this landed for you!
thanks
I write at least 500 words a day. I draw every day. I go to the pool every day weather permitting. I read every day. I need to play my guitar and harmonickey every day.
That sounds like a good life
Reminded me of an Ogden Nash poem:
Kind of an Ode to Duty
O Duty,
Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?
Why glitter thy spectacles so ominously?
Why art thou clad so abominously?
Why art thou so different from Venus
And why do thou and I have so few interests mutually in common between us?
Why art thou fifty per cent martyr
And fifty-one per cent Tartar?
Why is it thy unfortunate wont
To try to attract people by calling on them either to leave undone the deeds they like, or to do the deeds they don't?
Why art thou so like an April post-mortem
Or something that died in the ortumn?
Above all, why dost thou continue to hound me?
Why art thou always albatrossly hanging around me?
Thou so ubiquitous,
And I so iniquitous.
I seem to be the one person in the world thou art perpetually preaching at who or to who;
Whatever looks like fun, there art thou standing between me and it, calling you-hoo.
O Duty, Duty!
How noble a man should I be hadst thou the visage of a sweetie or a cutie!
But as it is thou art so much forbiddinger than a Wodehouse hero's forbiddingest aunt
That in the words of the poet, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, this erstwhile youth replies, I just can't.
Great post! I'm positively evangelical about spreading the word that willpower is a myth. Willpower is the bastard child of out of control individualism and Protestant work ethic.
To do lists are great if used correctly. By which I mean, focus on the items that are crossed off and praise yourself for being a productivity rock star. Not enough crossed off? Add a few items like getting out of bed, showering, brushing teeth, drinking water.
I do berate myself, but it’s like Mickey calling Rocky a bum. I do it bc I know I am a champion. Someday I will catch that dang chicken.
This is a terrific article, thanks for sharing your straightforward insights!
This is perfectly timed for me and this idea that we actually do what we like or get something out of, is very relevant to my analysis of life. But, if I buy into the idea that I really do what I like to do, which I do, then I really am a lazy lame-ass.
I have the means and methods to do what I say and think that I love: bike, hike, ski, climb, camp, eat-out, work in a rewarding stimulating environment, connect with friends and family and go to concerts, but most of the time I just end up sitting on the computer or computer adjacent device trying to figure out what's going on in the world. Not working. Scrolling.
Busy, busy, busy. What's up with that? I got tired just reading your article and barely made it to the end. I don't do word counts. I don't try to write every day, but my novel advances slowly but surely. No one is waiting for me to finish. It takes the time it takes. Committing to publishing one episode per week for my serialized novel, which appears tomorrow, is more than enough for me. I guess I'm wired differently. Living in Latin America, I learned the meaning of the word "mañana," which can mean tomorrow, but also means some unspecified time in the future. When is it going to be finished? Mañana. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the time you have to spend with friends and family. Forget about trying to cross anything else off your "to do" list.