If there’s a psychological term for this phenomenon, I’d love to know what it is. Everyone knows what I’m talking about when I mention it, like it’s some great metaphysical truism. I can’t come up with the proper cliche for “When you want to do something, obstacles jump into your way to test your commitment” but I know there is one. It’s not quite When it rains, it pours, because that’s just about getting more of the same (usually bad). There’s a damn cliche for everything — help me out here, people.
This week I decided to get serious about large chunks of time for my writing. I have several projects I want to finish, I have new ones I want to start. I have a list, and I am honestly interested in doing everything on the list. It is not a crazy amount of work, although it demands dedication and performance and a lack of wasting time on the Internet. I am not aimless. I am very focused.
Of course suddenly there are several thousand non-writing things that must be handled. That’s not an exaggeration: yes, they must be done and generally I am the one to do them because I am the one with a day that is easy to arrange. Simon needed to see an eye doctor ASAP. I had to drop off some stuff for the school play (which meant going to the market, then swinging by school, getting everything in there…). More Webelos stuff got scheduled we hadn’t been expecting (or should have been expecting and simply didn’t). The First Lego League Championship had been scheduled for the 14th and got unexpectedly rescheduled, so the kids’ Lego teams had to reschedule meetings. And so on.
I asked on Twitter/Facebook, “This week I’m serious about making time for my writing. The universe responds with a million appts for me to take care. What’s that about?” And one of my cohorts from USC responded, “Confirmation of commitment..are you sure that’s what you want to do.” And that’s an explanation I’ve heard from a couple of people. Like it’s an event that everyone’s experienced and is probably reproducible in a lab: You’ve mentally committed to work on your own stuff…so the universe steps up with a series of tests to make sure that you really mean what you say. Not so much mental resistance as the physical, external, in-your-face kind.
Only…I can’t really envision the Universe saying, “Hmmm…yeah, that chick over there. Too many New Year’s resolutions. I don’t buy her commitment. Throw some obstacles in her way, okay?” And the Universe’s team of elves get cracking on the problem. Actually, now that I’ve phrased it that way I totally envision the Universe and some elves, but I’m not sure it helps me understand what’s going on here to personify it this way.
This has not stopped me from phrasing my response politely as, “I will of course do all of these tasks that absolutely need to be done, and then I will get back to what I was doing before, and you will give me more time, Universe, ‘kay? Thanks.”
My theory is a little different actually — it’s that your attitude has shifted about those “obstacles” which, in effect, does reveal your level of commitment.
In other words, unless you were sitting around staring at the walls for the number of hours that you would like to now be writing, you were Doing Things. Probably the same sort of things, and probably a rather large variety. If you entertained yourself or passed the time with some activity in between Doing Things, that was a hobby (at best) or just time kill, and therefore, not worth noting or caring about. However, now you would rather fill that time with something you care about. If you didn’t care about it (i.e., didn’t feel a commitment), then these interruptions where you have to Do Things would just be normal activities, not “interruptions.” But the perception now that Doing Things is an interruption means your own paradigm has shifted. It demonstrates to you (probably most of all) that you’re serious about this, that yes, you will have to make some changes or shift things around or plan out how to Do Things in a fashion that will allot you uninterrupted time to write.
Oh, that’s very interesting. I think what you say is true — a lot of this stuff is typical (it’s not like a tornado suddenly set down in town and really tested my resolve) and it’s just that my attention is focused elsewhere at the moment. The stuff I needed to deal with just seemed to come in a tidal wave.
Just means I have to stop losing time on the internet so much. Ever notice how people complain about that these days? I am going to make much use of my MacFreedom, methinks