Motivation and change
Some people need change to focus, motivate and re-energise them. Undone jobs, unfulfilled dreams, unmet expectations can all be thrown into stark relief by sudden and seismic changes in circumstances, but even a small alteration can shift perceptions. Change can force a person to reassess their situation, rework their priorities and forge ahead in a new direction. Witness T’s recent redundancy, during which he decided he would rather return to academia than get another job in programming. (At which point he .. er .. got another job in programming. Ok, crap example.)
This is not me, however. My source of renewed energy is, perhaps counter-intuitively, getting things done. If I have a list of jobs, I can sit and stare at it for (literally) weeks, putting things off, engaging in displacement activity and generally sticking my head in the sand until the jobs have become pressing issues and/or have accumulated so that they require a titanic effort to tackle them. This applies to paying bills, work, domestic stuff, correspondence – you name it. Believe me, I can put anything off.
But then, at some point, I wake up and think – no, I really have to do that. I can’t put it off any longer. So I take a deep breath and do whaever it is I’ve been avoiding for so long. And it takes a little while, and a little effort, but I get it done – whether it’s putting away a pile of clean washing, weeding a patch of garden, paying a bill, or writing an article for a local magazine.
And once it’s done, I look around and realise it wasn’t so hard. Then I berate myself for putting it off for so long, and remember the other things I’ve also been putting off. And I do one of those. In this way I build up a head of steam, under which I often manage to whirl through most of the things which have been accumulating. I rush round in a frenzy of activity, congratulating myself all the time on my efficiency and effectiveness and conveniently forgetting that had I been a little more efficient and organised in the first place, there would be no need for such a hurricane of urgent and frenetic sorting out.
Then, of course, the energy runs out and I slow down. I can normally make the self-congratulation last a couple of days until another job arrives which I have to put off, at which point the avoidance cycle starts again. I’ve been doing this for years – it’s not a great way to work, and I wish I could just deal with things as they arrive, but that doesn’t seem to be the way my head works.
Shit, were we separated at birth or something?
ME TOO!
I don’t think I’ll really get anything done on this boring book until the deadline is too pressing to not do it!!
PS. Planning a trip to visit my sister in England in October!!
PS. So T got that job, did he? He started yesterday?
Yes … and no. He accepted the job, even though he has other applications pending, and was supposed to start on Monday (working from home) and then spend Tuesday in London presenting a paper at a conference for the people from his new workplace. However, 4pm on Monday we got a phone call from his new boss, telling him that he’s not actually starting paid work until Mon 22nd, but please could he go to London and present the paper anyway.
I was chopping vegetables at the time for the kids’ supper, and had an extremely sharp chefs’ knife in my hand. It’s a good job his boss wasn’t in the room, or he might have been diced along with the carrots.
Yay! for trip to England in October. Pleasepleaseplease can we meet up for a coffee/lunch/day out somewhere? I’ll work out later how to explain you to T – one of the problems of writing this anonymously!…
Good thing I’m not a man, then! Then you’d really have some explaining to do!
Of course I’d absolutely love to meet up. I’m really hoping I can sweet-talk my boss into letting me go for two weeks. I mean, I’d go for a month if I could. But one week seems silly, considering I’d be travelling two of those days. There’s so much to do and see! I must visit Betty’s and go for walks everywhere and explore bookshops and little villages and check out the 250-yr-old cottage my sister bought in Pickering that’s still on castle grounds, and I must see you, too, so we can gab and I can swoon in the presence of your accent and intelligence!
(I’m not being sarcastic there, btw.)
Ugh, what a way to start, for T. I’d have slugged his boss myself were I there. Grrr. I hope this isn’t the start of something intolerable!