I am a leaf on the wind…

…watch how I soar.

As stupid as it sounds, sometimes it’s harder to write a blog post when everything is going well. Angst is easy to get 750 words out of; just look at all of the emo writing I did when I was in high school. Life is dark, everyone sucks, happiness is a myth brought about by greeting card companies, blah blah blah. It’s easy to write long, angsty diatribes about humanity crushing you, the sins of the bourgeoisie, or how much you hate hipsters. When you’re happy, though, it’s kind of tough to squeeze out those words.

As I turn the corner into the beginning of the semester, I’m getting that feeling of, “Hey, I’m on top of my stuff.” That’s a weird feeling; more importantly, that’s often a prideful feeling. And pride goeth before destruction (damn you, KJV, for having such poetically beautiful, but poor quality, translations).

It’s hard for me to feel good without qualifying it. Sure, I’m on top of my stuff, but it’ll all crash down. Sure, I have a great list that I’m working through, but I’m probably missing something. Negative thoughts are easy to sit on, but something positive requires great scrutiny before I let it sit.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof – and sometimes, I feel like positive thoughts and beliefs are those extraordinary claims. They require so much dissection and analysis that to even get a pat on the head for printing out an info sheet for my private lesson students requires a 20 point checklist. I’m not trying to fly a plane, I’m simply trying to check off one little thing on my todo list.

But there, check. It’s done. And the next thing. While I’m picking at low hanging fruit, I am getting things done, and I do have a forward momentum moving into the next few weeks. Things will pick up, and the ball will start chasing me down the hill like Indiana Jones, but at this point, I feel like I have the mental and physical energy to out run it.

All of that running does build up some momentum. When you do good work one day, it makes it easier to do good work the second. As loathe as I am to mention Jerry Seinfeld, he does talk about this kind of momentum when it comes to writing jokes. Basically, he had a giant calendar, and every day he wrote jokes, he put a big X on the calendar for that day. The goal was not to break the chain – to keep as many days in a row of writing as he could.

That’s what work momentum is, be it in writing, working out, or practicing music. One day, then the next. The sheer weight of the ball rolling will keep it rolling, and the force you running will keep you moving.

That’s what I’m aiming for right now. I am a leaf on the wind – I’m cruising right now at a good pace, getting things done, not letting things bog me down, and using the momentum of daily progress to keep me out of the muck. Now, sure, I’ve had to install website blockers on Firefox to keep my fingers from idly typing facebook.com every two seconds (and you’d be surprised at how adept my fingers are at doing that without my permission). When I do type it in, though, I have Firefox set to redirect me to my todo list. That usually snaps me out of it.

In addition, I’ve also had to hide a few of my game applications from my desktop so I won’t be so quick to click on them. Out of sight, out of mind. Or just sheer laziness.

I know it sounds a little like punishment, but it’s working, and I’m liking the feeling I have when I actually get things done during the day, and then I can put everything away for the evening and actually have some time to spend with my Lovely Wife without the spectre of work over my head.

I’m moving right along, and right now, I seem to have things under control. I know that I’ll have to put more weight on my end to balance responsibilities as I go forward, but I’ve got some energy in my tanks.

Hopefully, I’ll have enough to get me through the first few weeks of the semester and use that momentum to kick some ass.