It's true. Lately, I've been ... well, overworked, and burnt out, but that's a result of the show I'm doing and won't be the case after next weekend. But aside from that? Lately I've been unhappy, and restless, and even more anxious than usual. Lately I've been ... hurting, and aside from a few specific-but-not-comprehensive reasons, I haven't been able to figure out why. I always try to pinpoint the heart of my problems so that I can "fix" them, and so far, it hasn't helped.
Primarily I blame my job/life situation. It's all I can freaking talk about these days, apparently. I am sick of waking up before the sun. I am sick of feeling anxiety about staying up past 10 pm. I am sick of not stretching my brain or learning things, sick of not getting any closer to grad school or a career, sick of pandering to the entitled narcissism of our society. So I have started The Job Hunt, because clearly the problem is that I need a new job, and once I have one, I will be happy again.
But ... that doesn't fix it. It's not about creating a new scenario in which conditions are perfect [1]. Because how will getting a new job push me to start working out? Or start blogging more? Or start reading all the articles and links people send me, which gives me more thinking and blogging material? Not to mention the books I want to read, or the writing I want to do. New job =/= free time, inspiration, and/or motivation. I've been saying that not using my intellect at work makes it easier not to use it at home, but the truth of the matter is that using my intellect at work will just make me want to not use it at home (and also, probably, give me a 'better' excuse for not doing it).
I was talking to a friend today about timing and about plans. And I basically paraphrased my mom, who always used to tell me that life doesn't work on an "if/then" basis. You can't wait to start something until you do something else, because then your entire life is contingent on you doing that one thing. If you want to do something, you have to make yourself DO it, regardless of the timing. This is stuff I've known forever, and applied in weird places [2]. Apparently it's also stuff I believe in enough to tell other people--but not to take to heart. Because the presence of Starbucks in my life isn't the problem. It might be a problem, but not the underlying one. And neither is not getting into grad school, or feeling out of touch with my friends who don't live around here.
You guys, I have a confession. I haven't been to church in ... a really long time. I didn't even go on Easter Sunday because of a ridiculous scheduling error (I don't want to talk about it) and recently, I can tell. I can almost physically feel how badly I
And I've known that this is the problem for ... a while. I've been feeling it creep up on me. It's not that I don't think church is important, because I totally do. [3] I guess I've just never been this aware of how much I needed that forgiveness and sanctification in my life [4]. It's never really been this bad before. And it's weird because was never an intentional thing, it's just sort of how it happened. But now this is routine, and I need to break out of it, because I am convinced that re-establishing a norm for myself IS going to fix the problem, especially if that norm is a foundation of faith and hope.
So I'm going to make the effort to go to church more. And to actually bust out the Treasury of Daily Prayer that Keaton and Rebekah got us, and to spend more time focusing on Scripture and less on the daily drama I can't do anything about anyway.
And I'm scared. Because that right there is a lot of law, and I know I'm not going to stick with it. So a huge part of me wants to shrug it off--why bother starting, if you're just going to flake out anyway? But that brings me back to the idea of plans, and timing, and getting stuff done. And I know for a fact that I need to work on reconstructing the way I look at time as a whole. I already know that I can't create for myself a weekly schedule, because my life is never that easy to coordinate. So I just need to take one day at a time, and let it be what it is. Will I be productive at all this coming week? For goodness sake, no. It's tech week. Who am I kidding. What I can do is let it be tech week, and not expect anything to get done, and worry about the future ... in the future. Because conditions will NOT be perfect, ever, and sometimes you just have to make do without the business socks [5].
And at the very least, I'll go to church on Sunday. But pray for me, brothers and sisters. Because the spirit is willing, but ... my bed is just so comfy ...
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[1] every time I use that phrase, I am actually quoting the Flight of the Conchords song "Business Time" in my head
[2] like breakups, for which there is never a good time, or in my personal philosophy regarding design and "predestination"
[3] please see this link (sent to me by my mom) for the quickest/best explanation for why we should go to church on a regular basis
[4] my use of the term "sanctification" is totally a result of watching a Rev Fisk video - click here for the link and go to approx. 4:50 for the definition if you don't want to watch the entire thing
[5] see [1]. and this video.
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