This week, I’m taking a break from the Living Accidentally series. Partially because I’m not quite sure of a topic and partially because I want to be honest with how I’m really feeling lately.

When people ask me “how are you,” I usually reply with a generic “I’m fine” or “doing alright.” Then I ask back “how are you?” And they’d reply the same. It’s just some greeting everyone uses before getting into the real part of the conversation. Like an extended “hello.”

Lately, I have dreaded that question. Because I am not fine. I’m afraid to answer truthfully when someone asks. I don’t think they want to hear how I’m truly doing.

Honest, hard truth about where I am: I am not doing well. That’s probably not surprising for anyone who has read what I’ve written over the past several months. It’s been centered around breaking out of loops, negative thinking, and finding purpose. I’ve been hoping that some of my writing would actually stick to me, and I’d be able to crawl out of this dark place. But somehow, things seem to be getting darker.

This isn’t right, I tell myself. Things shouldn’t be going this way. It’s not right.

I tell myself what others have told me.

“It’ll be okay. You’ll figure things out.”

“It could be worse.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s not a big deal anyways.”

I find this seems to be the accepted response to people struggling. You want to uplift them in some way. You want to assure them that things are okay, that things could be worse, and that in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t so bad.

Maybe this is just me, but a lot of times, this does not help at all. It just makes me feel worse.

But I’ve also heard “it’s okay not to be okay.”

This actually made me feel a little better. It made me feel some relief that it’s okay to feel the way that I do. It’s okay to be struggling. It’s okay to be hurting.

I always felt that feeling hurt or going through struggles was not a good place to be. That it was something I should never feel. And if I did feel it, shame on me for getting into this place. Shame on me for not being prepared or good enough.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, struggles are a normal part of life. Getting hurt is normal. Feeling pain is normal. Without any of these sorts of feelings, there would never be the opposite. The joy of overcoming a challenge. The sense of pride of getting back up after getting hurt. Feeling determined to get past the pain. Every low comes with the highs.

Right now, I’m just going through the lows. It feels never ending, but that’s okay because this is where I am right now. This is my path that I am on, and it’s okay.

It’s okay that I’m not okay. And that has made all the difference to continue going.

Stop waiting. Whatever the reason is, stop waiting and just go. Take your shot.

Many of us wait to act. We wait because we need to do more research. We wait for the best time. We wait because it’s not perfect. We wait until we’re motivated. We wait because there’s always tomorrow.

When we’re stuck in a rut, waiting is another form of procrastination. The waiting game is the opposite of taking your shot. If you wait for the perfect moment, you’ll be waiting forever. The longer you wait, the less you receive opportunities. Not many people get what they deserve, win, get rich, or finish anything by playing the waiting game. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to achieve what you’re trying to do.

You may feel that waiting is the right thing to do. You want to wait to write your first article because you have to do more research and make sure it’s the best thing you can produce. You wait to release your product because you can add one more detail before it goes public. You wait to send the report because you can add more information. You wait to study because it’s late and you can start tomorrow when you’re more focused. You wait to start learning an instrument because it’s not important right now. You wait to invest in the market because it’s not the perfect time. You wait, you wait, you wait.

Sometimes waiting is good and can work out in your favor. However, I believe when waiting plays out well, it’s only in the short term. In a long term view, waiting doesn’t do many favors. The reason why is because the more you wait, the less you learn. The less shots you take, the less feedback you get. The faster you take shots, the more feedback you receive. Life is all about the lessons from feedback. A life without lessons is going to be pretty dull. Sure, it’ll be safe, but is sitting on the bench waiting your entire life the way you want to live? Will that really be a life lived on purpose?

Personally, my waiting is due to overthinking. I believe overthinking stems from being afraid of what others will think. I’m afraid to take actions that might make me look stupid, silly, or annoying, so I overthink and constantly second guess. Waiting and overthinking leads to indecisions and being stuck in a rut. The one for sure way to get out seems to be to just go.

Stop waiting. If you’re waiting because you’re afraid, the only way to get over that fear is to face it. If you’re waiting because you don’t know, the fastest way to learn is to just do. If you’re waiting because it’s not perfect… well, hate to break this to you, but it will never be perfect. But you can improve on it, but only if you take your shot first and learn from it.

My writing game has been the one thing I no longer wait for. I know that my writing is far from perfect. When I read some of my articles, I cringe and don’t even want to post it. But where’s the lesson in that? How will I even know if I truly like writing if I don’t give it a shot?

Writing has been my one outlet to get myself out of my rut. I waited for a long time to write articles. One day, I just started, and this is where I am now. I’m not expecting to be a famous author, I’m just writing to just go. I’m not writing to get to any particular destination. I’m using it as a tool to get going. So far, it’s been helpful because Thursdays have been my best days. It’s the one day out of the week that I feel like I have a reason to get out of bed. It started because one day I decided to stop waiting, and just go for it.

Have you been waiting to write? Waiting to learn an instrument? Waiting to apply for that awesome job? Waiting to learn a new language? Waiting to talk to that special someone? Stop waiting, and just take your shot! You’ll win in the long run.

One day, a man decided to start a garden. He didn’t know where to begin. He just knew that he wanted to grow plants. So the man bought some plants and seeds and planted them in the dirt. He watered them occasionally, cut out weeds once in awhile, and tended to his plants when he felt the urge to garden. After a few weeks, some of his seeds had sprouted, some had not. Some of the plants had grown taller, others had not. The man continued to tend to his garden. He watered the plants when he remembered, he cut out weeds occasionally, and tended to his plants when he felt the urge. After a few months, most of the plants were either withered or dying, and weeds had over taken his garden. The man lost the urge to tend to his garden.

Around the same time, another man also decided to start a garden. He didn’t know where to begin. He just knew he wanted to grow plants. He said he’d try for just a month. The man bought plants and seeds and planted them in the dirt. He watered them, cut out weeds, and tended to the plants every Saturday. After a few weeks, some of his seeds had sprouted, some had not. Some of the plants had grown taller, others had not. He committed to another month and continued to tend to his garden every Saturday. He noticed that some plants were still not growing or dying, so he tended to these plants twice a week. After a few months, his garden was doing well. Some plants had died, but he learned why and tried again. He continued to garden.

Our lives are built up in a similar way. If we garden our lives like the first man, only tending to it when we feel the urge, it will slowly wither away. If we garden our lives like the second, we will slowly learn how to live.

If you want to do something, schedule it. By scheduling a time to do something, we give it value. It becomes a priority in our life and we learn from them. We learn some plants need to be watered once a week, others twice a week. We learn some plants do well in direct sunlight, others need to be in the shade. We learn that weeds grow everyday, like clockwork. And some days, we do not want to water the plants, we do not want to cut out the weeds. But we do it anyways because we scheduled it and made a commitment to ourselves. Over time, this became a routine and has become part of us. Still, on some days, we do not feel good. On those days, it is hard to garden, but our routine drives us. And most days, after we tend to our garden, we come away feeling better.

Tend to your life. Schedule what is a priority, and commit to that schedule. Give it a beginning and an end. Some things will stick around, some things won’t, but as long as you’ve scheduled it, stay committed to it. You will learn and grow, just like a garden.

My personal lesson from writing and “Schedule It” article

A big win for me is that I’ve scheduled writing an article every Thursday. I’ve been able to pump out something for a few months now. There are rare days, where an article will materialize without a lot of resistance. Most days though, I sit in front of the computer for hours, check email and my phone a hundred times, stare out the window, check sports, drink water, get more water, and repeat.

My own lesson from this is that while I have scheduled a day to post articles, I did not give a specific time to start and end my writing sessions. I have no set time to write and only start once I’ve settled. This leads to most Thursdays being extremely stressful.

A change I’m going to make starting for the next post, is that I’m going to give myself a set window to write everyday. Let’s just go with 10 to 11am Monday through Fridays. Thursdays will be from 10am to 2PM, with my article being posted by 2PM. I will commit to this for the next 4 weeks and see how things turn out.

Just applied my own lesson and added events to my calendar. Sweet.