Distraction Fever

I've slipped a little off the "joie de vivre" arc I had been riding but I'm hanging in. I think I know my secret to regaining lost ground.

Purpose - a keen sense of an eye on what I want to accomplish and following through on it.

Sounds simple. I must learn to live the mantra "just do ONE thing". One action in the direction I want to go. One. That one action has an equal and opposite reaction. 

Some days? One move in the right direction takes me down a garden path of distraction. Other days? One good action begets another and another and so on and so forth. Then there are the days that ONE action is the beginning and end of all good intentions. 

When the going gets tough, the tough turn on the TV. Television and the glorious invention of "on demand", taping, pausing, rewinding and all the streaming options available has become the death of my best intentions.

I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. But? I do have an addiction to mind numbing activities.

I can see the repercussions in my writing. My thoughts don't have any meat on their bones. I skim the surface but I've stopped looking deeper. 

Even when I walk, my thought process has changed. I'm drawn to a park where there is a water feature that attracts nature in all its glory. I stop, look, listen and watch. Ducks, red winged blackbirds, rabbits and even bugs. Always moving. Life in motion. At least at six a.m. 

I wondered "Where do ducks sleep?" as I watched the family who appears to call this pond home. Google tells me they mostly sleep floating on the water. Floating. Even while sleeping there is movement. 

I replaced "duck" with "crow" in the above Google search and just fell down a deep rabbit hole reading about crows. Crows fascinate me ...

Distraction.

Sometimes I learn a little when I take these detours in my day.  Other times, I fritter away a perfectly good day doing little to nothing while following the whims of my thoughts. At least I'm thinking.

Today. Today I must choose and follow through on starting ONE thing. Start. Just start!

I don't want to lose the momentum I gained by accomplishing some of the tasks I call "hard". Start. Just start ...

Life Gets in the Way

I am sitting in a dark room, with a cup of coffee and a closed door in an attempt to tune out life's distractions (cats). I am curious to know what I would write if I lived in a vacuum. 

What would it feel like to be removed from distraction? No buzz of an internet, cell phone or TV signal. No deadlines biting at my heels, no cat hair stuck to those very heels, no bank book to balance. No responsibility to tend to the needs of others.

The past weekend was filled with everything I love. A bonus day off. Time at my little oasis away from home. Time spent with immediate and extended family. Time alone. 

But I was still connected.

A phone call that was necessary to take, in order to set up an appointment for Monday morning broke the spell. I woke up to this week with responsibilities pulling dragging me out of bed and out the door. A fog warning and yet another "check engine" light were not enough to stand in the way of what needed to be done.

A looming deadline should have me working at warp speed so I don't have to work through the weekend. But it's not. Distractions. Some real, most self induced. 

Real - the need to make (yet another!) bank appointment; make arrangements to pick up a cheque; paperwork to be completed for my bosses' boss; follow up on invoices I've been promised but not yet received; phone call reminders to nudge others into action. I have paper piles of things-to-be-done for others that I can't do on my own. The daily and weekly work must be tended. Then there is that looming deadline ...

Important - tending to the "check engine light", which seems to have finally broken the domino effect of a repair made a week prior; a phone call I have been wanting to make for the past week, which requires follow-up action; tending to the showerhead that is so clogged we are showering under a trickle of water; washing and taming my hair (again) ...

Never-ending - need I say "cat hair"?; cat litter; making lunch so I'm ready to run out the door to my other job; the need to replenish gas, milk and groceries; vacuuming and house cleaning tidying in general.

Self induced - oh, there are so many things in this category! Listening to my favorite podcast (We Can Do Hard Things); word and number puzzles; checking the status of my personal financial state of affairs; watch the backlog of recorded TV programs; Instagram check-ins; check email; testing the new cat-hair-removal gizmo I just bought (yes, it gathers the cat hair but the hair wafts into the air and lands on the freshly cleaned area which simply perpetuates the need to vacuum).

My thoughts are pinging around in my head like a ball in a pinball arcade game. Concerns over family members near and far. Frustrations over that which is out of my control...

That which is out of my control.

Those are the words that hit home the hardest. What do I have the power to do? Have I done it? "Do what can be done, then let it go" has been a long standing motto of mine. Perhaps the reason I can't let go is because I have not yet done what is within my control. 

Do what can be done, then let it go.

The Best Part of Waking Up (is coffee in my cup)

It is my goal to wake up, grab a cup of coffee then come immediately to this spot to write. Instead, this is what happens:

• wake up
• realize its wash day
• change out of my pj's so I can wash them
• make and de-cat-hair my bed
• tuck the top sheet over my quilt to avoid cat gaining entry and sleeping in my sheets
• toss in a load of laundry
• top up our cat's water while I'm there
• turn on the kettle
• open blinds
• run the dry mop over the floors to tame the cat hair within
• get lost on Instagram as I (allegedly) check for signs of life from my son on vacation
• start a new post here
• get lost on Facebook as I (allegedly) search for an obituary
• toss laundry in the dryer
• clean cat litter while I'm there
• make a smoothie and second cup of coffee
• listen to a We Can Do Hard Things podcast while I...
• work on my daily word and number puzzles
• call our friendly neighborhood mechanic 
• run my car back to the shop (domino effect of problems after a repair three days ago)
• turn on my work computer and start morning routines
• put laundry away
• finish puzzles
• run out to buy milk since my day is already off to a bad start
• have an early lunch
• finish listening to podcast 
• back to work
• cat hair cleaning tool arrives in the mail - have to test it out!
• vacuum
• get lost in the day
• wake up to a new day and find an absolutely empty post from yesterday

Of all the morning goals I set for myself, I only seem to accomplish one of them. I have a cup of coffee. Every day. Amen to that.

I'm "this" far into the day ... 

Planned Power Outage Alert

I was informed of a planned power outage between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. at precisely 7:37 a.m. By approximately 8:38, I had made Impossible Bacon Pie, fried onions (so they would be ready if I decided to barbeque hot dogs for lunch), pealed potatoes for supper and sliced up the remaining onion and celery for tuna sandwiches.

One hour. Meal and lunch prep complete. Dishes washed. House smelling yummy from all the prepared foods.

One hour the day prior consisted of an hour frittered away on the computer, accomplishing little to nothing with my time.

Give me a deadline and I will meet or beat it. Give me all the time in the world and I will take it all and feel the need for more.

I cannot help but think if I knew I had a set amount of time to live, how much more I would accomplish with the finite amount of days at my disposal.

The only thing we know for sure, is that we are all going to die. If we lived our days with that in mind and made the most the moments at our disposal we would soon exhaust ourselves. Living intentionally - to make something of each day we are given sounds reasonable. Then life happens. Distractions can reroute our plans in a heartbeat. 

Perhaps if we manage our distractions to "real life", put down our phones, walk away from the computer and turn off the TV we could live just a little more intentionally. It's worth a try ...