As I sit here staring at a blank screen, I’m questioning everything I’m doing. I’m second-guessing every move I make.
I know I want to write about something, I know I have something important in me, but I have no idea how to share it.
So… I procrastinate.
A new tab gets opened, a new search is started, which leads to random ‘busy-ness’. I’m justifying this search that’s lead me to look at Google trends over the last five years, around mental health and remote working. I’ve convinced myself that this is important; after all, I’m gaining insight into data that will help me write this post.
Except it won’t. It won’t help me write this post because it isn’t about our global search data patterns about mental health. In fact, as I’m writing this, I still don’t know what this post is about?
But I think that’s the point. I’m coming at this from the point of complete mental block. I have many ideas on what to write about, but the words won’t come when I start with a title.
So I’ve slapped on my headphones, logged in to brain.fm, selected Focus mode and now have a thunderstorm cracking away in my ears. Next, I open up my text editor and put it into full-screen. My set-up has three monitors; running my editor in full-screen mode essentially turns off my other monitors and gives me a complete distraction-free writing space.
All this helps to keep me hyper-focused on a single task.
However, I still don’t know what that task is, literally as I continue writing, I’m still none the wiser as to what the actual purpose of this post is.
I want to share about the many personal challenges over the past 12 months. I want people to know that it’s okay to be in a place of confusion at the moment. I want to be open about the difficulties I’ve faced in the hope that it will resonate with someone who happens to stumble upon these ramblings at some point in time.
I don’t have the answers, and that’s okay. I sent a tweet from the Big Orange Heart account last night, and it seems to have resonated with several people.
And I think this might be the point. You don’t have to have it worked out.
We can drag ourselves down by continually looking for the next steps forward, thinking it should all be planned out. As a child, I was repeatedly asked, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ – and I can remember thinking from a young age – “how on earth do I know?”
I’m early 40’s now, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!
This issue of knowing where I’m going and what I’m doing has been playing on my mind for some time. I’ve come to accept that during these times, this isn’t to be unexpected.
I’m blessed to have some wonderful people around me. Over the last few weeks, people have reached out to discuss this issue and be a friend to me. Sometimes that’s all we need, to know that there are others around us. People that care.
Everything else will find a way through. I’m not saying we should all sit back and hope for the best. To make a change and to impact our lives, we need to be proactive. Take the thunderstorm that’s playing in my ears right now – I made a choice to play it – and the result; 600+ words from nothing.
If you need to connect with others, please do join the Big Orange Heart community. It’s free, safe and friendly.
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