The Power of Prioritizing Passion & Pleasure

This week I had a remarkable AHA! It was after a magical evening among local booksellers, and Harper Collins representatives and their authors showcasing new books. Wine flowed and conversations about writing and stories and inspiration charged the atmosphere. The night encapsulated this phase of my life which is focused primarily on creative writing.

For more than six months now, I've been finishing my novel, gardening, and cooking with abandon--all things I love. Though I've been a writer since my teens, it's the first time ever that creative writing is my only job. For more than a decade, I wrote grants for education agencies and underserved communities; that was rewarding, but it didn't satisfy my creativity itch.

As for my AHA...

My friends know me as an epic journaler. Over the years, my journey has been peppered heavily with all manner of turmoil. Since I was a child, I've regularly (nearly daily) scribed multiple pages to unpack and analyze the angst--all captured in a literal trunk full of journals that have seen me through stuff. 

But recent seasons have generated a single journal with few entries that rarely fill a page.

I now realize that the major cure for what has generally "ailed" me for decades, is to write much and write consistently. It's my passion. It's what my soul craves.

Full-time writing is a luxury, I know, and people's lives are busy and chaotic. But I want to whisper humbly in your ears (because it's hard to hear such advice when the demands are endless.) If there's something burning in your heart, find a space to do that thing. It will soothe you in ways that nothing else will. Whether cooking, sewing, drawing, singing, reading, running, building, crafting, cycling, nurturing, volunteering, workshopping, or whatever it is the makes your body smile, do it.

To paraphrase author Louise Erdrich, let the dust bunnies gather and the plants go unwatered. Author Zelda Lockhart said when her child was young, she wrote in 15 minute clips, in the car between errands. Poet Lenard Moore, mentor to many of us, is relentless about writing everyday despite a loooooong daily drive to his teaching job.

So heal what ails you by making your passion your priority. Your passion is ultimately what will sustain you as your best self. We often say there's no time. But it can be found. Start by borrowing some from tasks that won't matter to your happiness & well-being.

Try some of these:

• Chat less. Let voicemail pick up.
• Time social media engagement so it doesn't gobble up hours.
• Skip shopping trips & useless meetings.
• Be more efficient at work, so you can get out earlier. (I was a HUGE procrastinator while teaching--which meant extra hours at the end of the day. Which meant, of course, that I had to journal about overcoming procrastination.)

Trust me. Pursuing pleasure by engaging in your areas of passion--for even minutes everyday, will do you unimaginable good. 

Most recent basket of journals...

 

Emergency! Time Pressure!!!!!

Deepak Chopra wrote, “In medicine we realize that people who don’t have enough time are probably going to develop health problems. The discovery of Type A behavior, for example, revealed that heart attacks were linked to a sense that there’s never enough time. …” Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.

It scared me when I read that. I totally identify. I was not surprised to read Deepak’s words, “It’s no accident that the word deadline contains the word dead.” When I wrote grants for a living, I would have to go directly to bed after meeting a deadline and stay there for a couple of days because I was simply done. After 15 years of that, I changed careers and never looked back because I felt like the deadlines would send me to an early grave. I don’t even like to hear the word grant at this point.

Something deep in my soul knows that the chronic rush so many of us feel is unnatural. We know it's not good for us, and it doesn't feel good while it's happening. Whether you work out in the world or work at home, there is this underlying, nagging feeling of what comes next, and will I have enough time, and I don't want to be late, and when am I going to do x and y?

So what’s the solution? I thought about summarizing Deepak’s recommendations, but they are a bit too metaphysical for simply trying to make it through the day. His website, however, is worth the visit: http://www.deepakchopra.com.

Linear time is simply what we’re stuck with (on this plane anyway). We only have so much leeway. So this weekend, I tried to come up with ways to save my heart—which has a tendency to race and rebel when under emotional time pressure. Since I want my heart to last for as long as I want it to last (a very, very long time), these are my intentions:

q       Make a daily list with the most important things at the top, and try very hard to fit in the things that really matter. So today at 4 p.m., I simply stopped what I was doing, locked the classroom, and drove to the track to get in my three-mile walk. I refused to think about the condition of my desk because that would have taken me out of the present moment. The condition of the desk will be in my present moment tomorrow when I walk into the room.

q      Prepare only two items for weekday dinners (plus I will always have a chopped head of lettuce, so it can be a third thing if desired.) I have this ridiculous, early twentieth-century habit of sometimes making separate dinner items for each of us—e.g., pork for my husband, chicken for me. I lost that habit today when I realized I must suffer from some form of mental illness. Two dishes—max.

q       Keep centered in the face of chaos. If you are exposed to people-- any people, there will be stress (kids, wives, partners, husbands, parents, family members, coworkers, etc.). People will always have their own agendas, and sometimes will have agendas for us. Everybody basically wants what they want. Sooooo, I’m going to remember my agenda and think long and hard before I respond to the desires of others. Deepak says to have an inner smile and take three deep breaths before responding (something to that effect). Doesn’t that seem like a wonderful way to handle people who are trying to steal our time? Because if we aren't mindful, we will run out of time without having done anything that we want to do.

I suggest that you come up with your own plan. To coerce you into doing so, I’ll leave you with a final quote from Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. “When heart patients are given demanding tasks under a deadline, a significant number grow so agitated that their heart muscles actually suffer ischemic or “silent” heart attacks (damage without any sensation or pain).”   Jeeze!!!!!!!!!  (But to make you a bit optimistic... I've read that we can heal practically everything-- even the most caustic and devastating illnesses with the proper attention and focus.)