A few weeks back I was talking to a friend about this blog, and he summed up the entire thing like this:
“It seems like you’re always talking about some problem you’re going through, and how as soon as you’ve dealt with it you’re FINALLY going to get some work done for serious this time.”
As usual I’m exaggerating, but his point was basically the same: I often sound like a procrastinator who’s vowing to finally get down to work as soon as the latest distraction is out of the way. Especially in the wake of my last post about kicking bad habits in Japan, I’ve been thinking: have I fallen into a pattern of letting one distraction after another interfere with my work?
Here’s an even crazier thought: have I fallen into a pattern of blogging about these same distractions so that everybody can see how inefficient and easily distracted I am?
To supplement my point, here’s a list of distractions and difficulties I’ve written about since I started this blog:
- Dealing with text and phone alerts during creative worktime
- Working too much overtime
- Checking my email too often
- Working too much overtime AGAIN while also dealing with car problems
- Reading too much online news
- Massive burnout and multitasking sickness at my old online test-grading Day Job
- Moving/new apartment-related distractions
- Not getting enough sleep
- Working too much overtime at my Office Day Job
- Spreading myself too thin and not making enough sacrifices
- Taking on too many projects
- Not taking enough breaks
- Going back to online test-grading work when I really didn’t need the money that bad
- Coming to Japan and having a million things to do
- Worrying about my crooked boss and how he made my old job a shitty place to work
At this point a lot of you are probably thinking, “Wow Ian, you’re clearly the biggest slacker ever! When are you ever going to get control over your life?”
Quick reply: if I had total control over my life, this blog wouldn’t be very interesting ;-)
I Want to Be Honest When Things Aren’t Going Well
I remember reading somewhere that all the best literature is about truth because literature’s job is to show things the way they really are, and not the way we pretend they are in everyday life. We’re surrounded by so much falseness at our jobs and in advertising and even with people we pretend to like that we crave art that pushes aside all that bullshit and shows us something real about the world.
If I wrote about my life on this blog like everything was all hunky-dorey, this blog would get really boring really fast. No one wants to hear me talking about how great I’m doing, first off because it comes across as bragging, and second because there’s already a bunch of people doing that everywhere. I started this blog once upon a time to share the challenges of making a creative life for yourself because I couldn’t find anyone else honestly talking about those challenges as they were happening, whereas there’s plenty of successful people out there talking about how they became successful. Reading their stories is pretty interesting, but not as interesting as reading them in the moment.
I also find people who talk about how great their lives are to be less trustworthy, and I find myself wondering what problems they’re REALLY going through behind the scenes of their blogs or Youtube channels. I often sense a falseness there that I can’t really pin down, where people act like they have perfect, successful lives because that’s the only way they think they can earn respect. In the end, it feels like they’re just putting on a show
The other effect of pretending to be perfect all the time is that if other people fall for your charade they’ll see you as really far beyond their own experiences, like they could never ever match your perfection in a million years. On the flip side, I often find myself drawn to smaller indie writers, musicians, Youtubers, and artists who appear closer to my level, since it’s easier for me to see how I could get to where they are if I just kept working.
The Other Main Reason: Blogging About My Shortcomings Helps Me Sort Them Out
If understanding is the path to success, this blog is a major stepping stone.
When I blog about problems like my online news addiction or feeling overwhelmed with moving or not getting enough sleep, it forces me to explore them in more detail than I would if I were just lying on my bed thinking about them. It’s the same reason I keep a journal, and recommend that other people do too—when you write shit down, you’re doing the hard work that comes with thinking about and exploring what’s going on around you
Not only does writing about a problem help me sort through it, publicly posting about an issue like checking my email too often holds me accountable—if I’ve got a blog full of readers who know I’m wasting time checking email and trying to improve, I’m going to look pretty silly if I admit to having the same problem a few months later (which I didn’t!).
I’m also hoping that when I write about problems I’m having, someone out there reading will have one of those “Yes, I have that EXACT problem too!” moments. In cases like that, maybe, just maybe, I can help that person out.
I think about this a lot because I’ve felt that same resonation so many times with things I’ve read, heard, and seen, and want to do my part to share my own thoughts with people in hopes that they’ll resonate the same way. That’s a big part of why I started writing in the first place.
In that sense I’m keeping this blog partly for myself (so I can get better at stuff!), and partly for the people reading (so that they can read my experiences and get better at stuff too!).
Bottom Line: Nobody’s Perfect (Especially Me!) and That’s OK
At the end of the day, talking about problems you’re dealing with in the heat of the moment is more interesting than talking about problems you’ve dealt with in the past, so I want this blog to be a week-by-week chronicle of what I’m getting done and how well I’m doing it. I definitely have some crash-and-burn moments where I do some dumb things, but I want to be honest about doing my best to make them better.
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