Double fail
A couple of weeks ago when I missed my 259th consecutive week of writing, I knew that I was entering shaky ground. It is always like that when you break a habit. When you miss the first gym session, it is infinitely easier to miss the 2nd one and so on and so forth. Now I have missed two weeks in a row, which is a new low.
It is interesting to note how much resistance there is for me now to pick up the writing again. What happened? I guess life got in the way. We have had sick kids or parents in the family now for over a month, and it is still going. I have never experienced anything like that before, fortunately. And when you take care of sick kids or wife you lose a workday here, another one there, and the backlog builds. Then it just boils down to priority. And this blog just isn’t worth losing sleep over when you are running on fumes already with regards to sleep.
Speaking of sleep, it cannot be overstated how important it is. On bad days I think I hardly clock more than five hours, which obviously isn’t enough. To sacrifice another hour or two from that account by writing and imagine doing any kind of productive work the next day, is pure fantasy. One must also remember the simplest life hack or fact there is: Happy wife, happy life. An hour of quality time with the wife is infinitely more worth than to obsessively keep up this writing habit. In the long run it pays off immensely. Thankfully I am now wise and old enough to realize that.
One thing that I have missed a single beat on however, is my drumming habit. Even in the absolute worst of circumstances I have whipped myself to play my daily 15 minutes. For that one there are no excuses. I am so grateful that I have found and established such a habit in my life. A solid ritual that gives me great pleasure after finishing every session. But during these very stressful weeks where every second is cherished, I was once again reminded that if you have something important to do, you should do it early. First thing in the morning. It really sucks to go out and practice at 01:00 in the middle of the night when you realize that you have forgotten today’s session. That’s why I set my alarm clock at 05:15 now.
I believe that there is no better way to correct course than to get up earlier in the morning. Get a head start on the day and on everyone else. I also noted that I can now play my drums, walk my dogs, practice French for a couple of minutes, have a coffee with my wife and get the kids ready for kindergarten with no stress at all. And all I did was to get out of bed an hour earlier. What a no-brainer.
It is extremely difficult to go to bed earlier. Because you cannot determine to be tired. But to get out of bed earlier, anyone can do that. Tired or not. And what happens then is that you will be tired in the evening, and the next day you will want to go to sleep earlier, so bad.
Anyway, now the writing habit is fixed again for now. But I do sometimes really wonder whether I should get rid of it. If it has served its purpose? Nah, I’ll keep going for a while and see what happens. It is probably better to make an active decision to quit rather than just cry about the current circumstances and give up.