I Am Learning To Be Accountable, And You Are Coming Too

For a long time, I have wanted to write.  I have owned multiple websites over the last 15 years, each with the intent to create a haven for those interested in nature, wellness, and simplicity.  However, again and again, I have stifled myself and failed to produce content. 

I looked on, while the holistic/green movement passed me by.

All I have ever really wanted was to live a life without negative impact and help others find their own version of wellness.  I am so glad things are finally happening.  People are questioning consumption, taking wellness into their own hands, demanding environmental and social equality.  It is amazing.

I just wish I would have pushed myself hard enough to be one of the voices that contributed to this vision.

But I am a procrastinator. 

I have put in my 10,000 hours, I am sure, and I am a master.

With the emptiness of COVID looming over the world, this has come into hyper focus for me. 

I lost my job.  My husband accepted a transfer to a new city, and I felt so hopeful.  We were going to purchase a piece of land so I could finally build a closed-loop home, with some ducks and an extensive garden.  I would build an obstacle course and some small guest houses and host incredible family reunions.  Acres upon acres to provide for my loved ones and community.  Unfortunately, the deal fell through and the land remains on the market.  Months later I am still job-hunting and now living in an apartment. I am so appreciative of my wonderful husband and all of the good things this messed up world has to offer, but I am left pondering what I have really achieved in life.

These past few months have been a blank slate for me.  I have been as hopeful as I ever have been and just as hopeless.  I have had so many days that seemed full of opportunity wasted scrolling news feeds, looking on at the world in fear and horror.  But lately, my days seem to stack with little empty moments of unfulfilled intention.  I think “I am going to exercise”, I get my mat out, then I sit down – distracted.  The moment of motivation is gone. I convince myself that getting the mat out is one checkmark on the way to exercising.  “If it is out it will get done.”

But it doesn’t. It sits in the middle of the floor, a beacon that opportunity exists tomorrow.

And so has gone my intention to exercise, to write, to read books that excite me, to practice languages of the places I want to see.

Tomorrow will surely be a better day than today. 

My problem with these websites has been that I want to see the big picture first. I have sections planned and a list of articles to write. I idealize what the user experience will be. I am so good at organizing that it seems okay to dismiss the actual work of it, writing the articles themselves, if I spend more time planning. Then when I write the articles and I am so critical that I don’t post them. Years of material sitting in my digital trash bin that could have helped someone. Now the internet is full of the kinds of resources I wanted to - did - create and my voice doesn’t feel useful. That used to be as far as it went, but COVID has made me a procrastination ninja with all sorts of tasks, large and small, stretching on as the days bleed together. I am a full-on self-saboteur now, and it needs to stop.

Even the best of intentions aren’t actions.

Thinking about doing something isn’t doing something.

Preparing to do something isn’t the same as actually doing it.

Watching other people do something isn’t the same as doing it yourself.

Coronavirus has unloaded an evolving burden on every single person in the world.  But to have the time and ability to take action is a privilege.

I don’t want to be the type of person that watches the world instead of lives in it.

This isn’t really what this website is about, but I needed to put that out there.  I need to be accountable for my procrastination and resulting in prolonged stagnation.

I really do believe we build our lives; even though our options can be limited, our potential isn’t.  No one should waste that and that includes me.

If you have come back to this website, despite great lags in content and a lack of any solid base to form healthy habits around, I apologize and I thank you for your patience. I am going to write some unpolished articles on here, articles that may seem irrelevant to you, or dated in an already saturated market. I am searching for a groove and I need to feel beholden to something to get there. I have some hard truths to work through, none of us are perfect - not even the peddlers of betterment, but maybe the journey will be helpful for you too.

I am going to figure out how I can help you be the best version of yourself, I just have to get there first.