081. Final TEN
The Final TEN Days!
Wow!
I do not know if I can say I have ever tried so hard to stay consistent at something the way I have done this Full Send Challenge. Honestly, I do not think I recognise myself.
Something that has echoed throughout this series would be the now experientially proven principal, ‘we often overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a year’. This to me, was one of those grounding statements that helped me reconnect with reality a little bit.
I suppose one can argue that primary and secondary school prepared for such a lesson. Throughout our childhoods, each year would come with a series of classes and lessons, all of which we were to have mastered at the basic level for each year group before we could proceed to the next. You go from Grade 1 Maths, to Grade 2 Maths; Year 10 Physics to Year 11 Physics. All these little steps showing you how much you can achieve in a year. Once upon a time you could not do algebra, then at the end of the year, perhaps you can, or maybe you have to take the subject again, however, the only way is up and growth is linear.
When the institutions disappear, and you find yourself staring into the abyss that is hope, wanting for something, having had seen a bottom which you never wish to return to, this principal of life becomes much harder to reach.
When your life gets caught up in the day to day, it is hard to see beyond a few hours ahead. Plans for weekend are even hard to make when life is somehow always throwing something at you. It’s easy to quit. It is easy to let go of any hopes of life ever getting better when your life is an endless loop of whatever scenery it is that has become your accepted hellscape. However, if for a moment you can challenge your reality; challenge your position in it; would you dare ask yourself,
‘Is this all I am? Is this all I ever will be?’
Chances are, you have probably asked yourself that already. Perhaps you even found yourself ruminating on thoughts that only kept you ruminating. Stuck in your head where you are forced to live in this reality you are a hostage of. The reason likely being, without action, our minds do not know that the world is a creation of our minds, filled with our beliefs of it.
‘What else could I be?’
It doesn’t have to be anything spectacular. Not everything has to be everything. Sometimes you do because you can, and that in itself is enough a reason to dare. Perhaps you could say, ‘I could be a person who draws cubes very well’. Give yourself an hour or two in the day, perhaps even 15-30 minutes, whatever it is, make the time. Get a regular 80 page sketchbook, and one day at a time, 80 days later, you might learn that you’ve not learnt much but the habit of making time, to try and learn again. However, at the end of it, you might find yourself wondering, ‘if I could manage to draw a cube 80 different ways, perhaps I could take my chances with this architecture thing’.
I don’t know where your journey will lead but, ask yourself ‘what else could I be’, then give yourself 60-90 days, see how it goes, because at the end of it, you will either find something that you don’t particularly enjoy doing, or you will find yourself becoming someone you enjoy being. Either way, the answer will be found somewhere between now, and however far you are willing to try.
Dear reader, may the countdown begin. And as we do so, let make sure we are steadily putting our best foot forward. Enjoy your day, evening or night. I hope you return for the remaining 9!!!
