Getting back on the Bandwagon

Ok,

I was going strong for a while with an uber-productive schedule. I was sleeping about four hours a night (a first for me) and getting so much done during the day. Then I got sick and I haven't yet made it back to the same productivity level even though the illness has gone.

It's easy to get depressed at these times for me. Luckily, I had a book I was reading that really helped. It's called "Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results" by Robert E. Quinn (now in My Favorite Books section to the right.)

I was thinking about all the ways I feel incompetent or incapable and wishing I was different when I came across this gem:

We feel bad, in part, because we know that we have the potential to be more than we are, yet here we are choosing to behave in ways that increasingly diminish the self. The more divided we become, the more disempowered, worthless, and unlovable we feel. The divided self is the diminished self, the self in the process of deterioration and slow death. (pg. 78)

I thought, this is how I feel right now! So I kept reading to find what the solution was and I found this:

To be fully alive, we need to be engaged with what is really happening around us from moment to moment [Quinn calls this "emergent reality"]...but to engage emergent reality often means that we won't have all the answers, we will have to learn as we go. In the midst of uncertainty, we have to come up with creative solutions. Then through trial and error, we have to mold the potential solution into something that will work.

Quinn suggests that being able to regularly do this gives us "unconditional confidence, that is, confidence that comes from knowing that we can learn our way through virtually any situation."

I sometimes trap myself in a paradox, and I've noticed other people doing it to. I get trapped in the idea that I can't do something until I can gain more confidence, but it's in doing difficult things that we gain it.

So I'm trying to wade in to the mess I've created by my own procrastination and dealing with it as best as I can. I'm already feeling a lot better, and I'm making progress, I'm gaining more and more hope. I'm still not there yet. I feel I may not get there completely until after I graduate and can finally say, "Yes! I actually did it!" It's tough because now is the time I need to really be looking at jobs but I still don't feel like I can look potential employers in the face and tell them that I'm an idea candidate for their company and why.

But! I'm getting there. Life is full of trying. Progress comes in *constantly* facing fears, inadequacies, and uncertainty.

I hope you may do the same.