For those of you who may not know me, I love me a good list. I write them almost daily (I tend to take the weekends off). One day, recently, the thought came to me to ask myself the following question:
“What is one thing that you can do today to bring you closer to the life you want?”
At first, the knee-jerk reaction was (per usual) rather flippant: Well, I’m already doing that, aren’t I? That one thing is to keep doing what I’m doing. End Scene.”
Then I started thinking about it. Not as much as I probably should have at the time, mind you – that’s sometimes the nature of life. But it’s been on the back burner of my mind for a number of weeks now and here’s what bubbled to the surface.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like anymore.
Let me stop right here and say that there is absolutely no version of my life that includes not telling stories. But writing…well, I’ve been at that for a while now. and while I don’t see myself stopping that ever, I do see myself branching out. I’ve got other interests. I’ve recently picked up Producing duties for the If This Goes On…Don’t Panic podcast. I’ve got an interest in voice acting – so much so, I’ve built a recording booth and am even thinking of taking classes.
So the first thing to answer is:
What kind of life do I want? What does that look like, now that I’m pushing 53? It certainly isn’t the same thing that I was shooting for a couple of decades back, I’m not that person anymore.
That’s what I’ve got to figure out. Might be I let the question cook on the back burner for a bit, until my birthday rolls around – which is always an introspective time. Maybe I’ll have an answer by then, but I don’t want to do nothing until then. I’ve got ideas. There’s writing to do. deciding on what vocal samples I want to record – then actually get them recorded.
What’s one thing I can do today to bring me closer to the life I want? Decide on something, then do the thing. Might be that it’s not something that you can do in one go. That’s fine. Do what you can for as long as you can, then pick it up the next day, and the next until you’re done. Then move onto the next thing.
Do that one thing. Today. It adds up.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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