I am currently on a mission to Become Awesome.  My next move is to write about how it will unfold, focusing on the forward direction so fervently that I don’t even acknowledge anything else.  (This introduction has been difficult to write because of the negativity and stuckness I am in the process of overcoming, but I’m pleased with what I’ve written and I’m ready to get into more detail.)

Definition

I need to define what I mean by “Awesome”, so that I will recognize it when I achieve it.

Clarity is a particularly relevant part of my Vision of Awesomeness, and I am amused that it has arisen first from my mess of thoughts on the matter.  Clearly, this facet arose first because of how important it is to have clarity when defining anything, but there is more to it than that.  I know it will be Awesome to cultivate clarity in all aspects of my life: in my surroundings, in my processes, in my plans, and in my accomplishments.

Consistency is another aspect of my Vision of Awesomeness.  It certainly takes consistency to Become anything, but the Awesomeness that I yearn to be is a consistent state of being.  Plus, it will be easier to be Awesome once I have practiced enough that it becomes natural!

Creation is of utmost importance in my Vision of Awesomeness, because my myriad amazing ideas need to be set free from the confines of my imagination.  I now must begin creating and accomplishing things, so that others can appreciate and benefit from my ideas.  The small steps I have taken and am taking are going to be joined by more and more steps as I Become the embodiment of the Awesomeness that I see possible.

Confidence is the key that to unlocking the Awesome state I want to Become.  I know the things I want to create, and I have known for a long time, but I have only recently started focusing on developing enough confidence to make these creations possible.  I am also practicing using stronger language when I state things that I know or even strongly suspect to be true, because appropriately-chosen words can help boost my overall confidence.  Furthermore, I am working on my posture, for both my physical and mental well-being.

Enaction

So here I am, working towards my mission of Becoming Awesome.  I started writing this today at the beginning of my time to myself, right when I returned home from walking my kid to his bus stop on his first day of Senior Kindergarten.  That means I started today with Awesomeness, and now, everything great that I do for the rest of today will serve to reinforce that Awesomeness.

Here’s to creating something, expressing with confidence, focusing on clarity, in a way that I intend to continue consistently.  Cheers!

I was happily acknowledging a product’s recent design upgrade, when it occurred to me that this is the third such that I have noticed in the past few years, and I don’t think I’ve done anything about them other than quietly appreciate.  Something must be said, out loud!

I have considered writing letters to companies when I notice something great that they have done with their products.  I am still considering it!  But I also think it would be good practice for me to write a quick blog post, and actually POST it.  I have thoughts, dammit, and they want out!  I keep noticing this, and I know I can do something about it.

But first: the design upgrades I want to applaud, purely out of my appreciation for them, not because of any exterior incentive offered to me.  The links below are just whatever I’ve found appropriate to illustrate.

Design Upgrade #1: Ziploc Easy Open Tabs

Warning: the April 2015 Ziploc Easy Open Tabs Press Release is distractingly mom-centred.  I’m sorry, but I can’t let this distraction go without delving into it a bit more first.

My first thought when noticing this design upgrade was that everyone would benefit from this awesome, yet extraordinarily simple, improvement to an already respectably-good product.  I especially appreciated how these would benefit people with arthritis or other difficulties with finger dexterity, it worked that well.  It didn’t even occur to me that I would be its primary target market, except in the fact that I am a part of “everyone“.  I apologize for being so distracted by how the press release focused on moms, but I can’t even get on with my point yet because I feel obliged to ask the surely-annoying question of, “What about the dads?”

Aargh.  My point.  I think I can return to it now.

My point is that this improvement surely benefits everyone.  I wasn’t even disappointed when my much-beloved “Easy Zip” slider enclosures disappeared from the large storage bags, because they were replaced with the Easy Open Tabs, which I had already realized that I adored.  These Tabs make opening the bag as easy as the Zip Sliders, but without the potential of falling off and rendering the bag unopenable!  AND without the worry that the zip isn’t all the way closed and the contents leaking or spilling out!!  Go, Ziploc!  Go, whoever came up with the idea!  My kudos goes to you.

Design Upgrade #2: Glad Garbage Bags, Separate but Rolled

I don’t know when this upgrade happened, but I do know that I immediately appreciated the convenience, as well as the added peace of mind.  I had always cringed as I tore along the perforations provided to separate a garbage bag from its parent roll, because I couldn’t help but wonder if I was weakening the bag by stretching it at all.  I don’t think I ever had a Glad Garbage Bag fail on me, which was why I was buying them in the first place, but when they switched from a perforated design to one where the bags are separate, but tightly rolled and incredibly easy to grab with one hand, I was ready to give a standing ovation.

I seriously do want to write them and celebrate this enhancement, but for now I’ll settle for scattering my kudos for them out into the wild.  I wish I could find a press release or something, like in the case of Ziploc above, but maybe they don’t even know how awesome the idea is.  I’ve never had more than one come off the roll at a time, so whoever came up with exactly the right amount of offsetting to use to ensure this, good job!  Go you!

Design Upgrade #3: Panama Jack Bottles with Narrower Base

Lest this post start seeming too bag-centric to be amusing, I am wrapping up my little list with something delicious.  (Not that a brand-new Glad Kitchen Bag doesn’t have its own delightful smell!)

Panama Jack is basically a cheap Irish Cream, made with wine instead of whiskey.  It is delicious in coffee. It used to be sold in bottles that were basically the same shape as Bailey’s or Carolina’s Irish Cream, presumably so everyone would know immediately how delicious it would taste in coffee.  Those bottles are rather large at the bottom, with a luscious curve midway up to a long and slender neck.

The new bottle has a narrower base, and the slender part of the neck is not nearly so long.  It is more wine-bottle shaped.  Most importantly, however, is how much more space-efficient it is, when storing it in the fridge alongside other essentials like milk and cream and juice.  As soon as I saw the new bottle, I couldn’t help but exclaim to the cashier about the improvement.  It was another of those things I simply must applaud!  Kudos kudos kudos to whoever decided to change the bottle!  I raise my Panama-Jack-enhanced coffee in your honour.

Mmm.

Simply Marvellous

The three design upgrades I have noted above demonstrate how a simple change can have immense value.  I also feel it important to acknowledge that some people had to come up with these changes, and I am grateful for those people’s contributions to making the world a better place.

Now, let’s all ask ourselves: “What are some small things that I can change, to make the world a better place?”

One thing that occurred to me is how society can be quite amusing and interesting at times, and that I’d like to see this part of society more.  There are some great people out there, doing great things, and it can be inspiring to be aware of them.  I also remembered how nice it was to have conversations with people all over the world, from the hyper-local to the farthest reaches.  We all have things in common with everyone, and it’s wonderful to experience this.  When I think about this, I am swept away with the urge to reconnect to digital society.  It’s quite likely that I’m immensely lonely.

Another, much more serious, thing I realized was that the internet is overloaded with depressing things. And I’m not just talking about the bad news and the fake science and people being awful to one another or bashing the great things some people have accomplished.  I even mean the same inspiring things that I mentioned as positive in the paragraph above!  How sad it makes me, to feel depressed by things that are clearly inspirational.

More Fun, Less Stress? Not quite.

Sometimes I feel I can’t take it anymore and so I retreat into pure entertainment and pretend that fun is all that matters.  It’s easy to think this way with a nearby four-year-old showing me how it’s done, but at the same time I know I need to teach him more “real-life stuff” by example, by… well, making a life out of my time, rather than merely filling my time with activities and arbitrary knowledge of miscellaneous things. Not to disparage knowledge or understanding, of course!  These are important supplements to what I’m talking about here.

So I know I need to consume less from “out there” and create more from “in here” (picture me tapping my head, or even my heart).  But it’s so hard.  I think I have a huge burden of dismay weighing upon me and making everything harder than it actually would be if I just jumped in.

Here, though, in this blog, I can practice jumping in!  I am already practicing calling myself a writer, but until I actually write more often, it’s basically a lie.  I don’t like lies.  Therefore– I must create more things, more often!  And in order to do this, I must reduce the amount of time I am spending consuming information/entertainment created by others.  I must also make sure to remember how much FUN I have with writing!  That’s why I want to do more of it!

Less Congestion, More Flow

It doesn’t help that I have other tasks weighing on me as well, but I know that getting through those will come in time, too.  Like any traffic jam, eventually the congestion will abate and everything will begin moving, with appropriate attention to safety and efficiency.

Hmm.  I like this traffic analogy of why the things I want to do aren’t yet happening: there’s just too many things trying to merge together and so it’s hard to move anything forward.  Furthermore, I can now see that there is a lot of (emotional?) fog permeating the lanes, making it very difficult to coordinate an improved flow.

I’ll have to let this thought percolate awhile, and see how I can shift things smoothly.  For now, though, posting this is going to be medicine for some of what is ailing me.

More Appreciating, Less Pretending It’s All Me

I’d like to thank Mike Mandel for creating his Navigator system, which I am currently employing to improve my life in literally every way I can think of.  (Yes, I really do mean literally, because it is so easy to apply to everything.)  This post’s headings are inspired by his system, which is why I feel I must mention it here, but that’s all I feel comfortable saying about it right now.  I don’t want to give anything away about it, because the brilliance of it is best appreciated direct from the source!

I have so many partially written

Having as many partially written things as I do is somewhat

What I’ve decided to muse about today is: is there a way I can accept the incompleteness, as it is, without being harsh with myself, so I can simply

And if I do start moving on with other things, how can I be sure

Now, seriously,

Impartially

Objectively speaking (or at least making some semblance of an attempt to do so on this matter), it makes sense that incomplete things would weigh on someone’s mind.  It also makes sense that it might be easier for that person to move on with other things if there was a clear and easy way to give up on the incomplete things — but, in many cases, it may be better to simply complete the incomplete.  The first step is to start looking for ideas to toss, so as to reduce the stress about the number of incomplete tasks.

Another idea: redefine “complete”.  Maybe some of the ideas are almost done already, and their time to completion can be reduced. For example: this blog post could be done, right now.

I have come to the point where I want to say “out loud” that I want to get back here, and write more.  So here I am, doing exactly that.

Will I post any of the things I’ve half-written over the past few years?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  I might even backdate them (I’ll denote these as such, for honesty’s sake).  Or I might focus on moving forward instead of looking backward too much.  Hard to say at the present. (Harhar.)

I mostly want to stretch my writing muscles again.  I need to get my fingers back to typing, so that when I do NaNoWriMo this year, I am not held back by my fingers aching from lack of use.  Seriously, I’ve barely typed a few hundred words a week in the past six months or so, which is why I think I might suffer if I jump in too quickly.  So, some short blog posts seem an appropriate warm-up, no?

Yes.

So I’m yearning for returning, as the title of this post says.  Perhaps just this short little post will help spur me forward, toward posting more, soon.

I’m about to attempt the shortest blog post I’ve ever written.  It shouldn’t be hard; I tend to write mini-novels, and enjoy the heck out of doing so.

But, well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t have time for that, right now.  This time, however, I’m acknowledging that this is my choice.

Anyways, here I am!  I am here!  I exist, still.

What am I doing?

I’m working on choosing better what I spend my time doing.  Cheesy, but true.

Really, though, what I typically do most these days is parenting. I feel like I’m getting fairly good at it.  My little guy is now over two years old, and I am enjoying the heck out of spending time with him.  He is at daycare right now, which he loves, but he still has a hard time saying goodbye to me when I drop him off.  It’s getting better, though.

And my thesis work is going better too.  I mean, it feels like it’s dragging on eternally, but I know it will end soon.  I’m planning that the ending is by my completing it, and that’s why I don’t really have time for this writing.

But I just paid for another half-year here at a2hosting, and thought I should at least write something here to justify paying for it.  I do intend to come back and write more, someday.  Perhaps a lot.  I consider myself to be a writer, and although all my writing is for myself these days (because who will read my thesis as thoroughly as I will?), I do intend to come back to the public eye soon.

What’s next?

So, other than just checking in, I wanted to say that I’m planning to post my son’s birth story eventually, because I really enjoyed reading other mothers’ birth experiences.  It is mostly written already (which I did so I wouldn’t forget the details), but I haven’t yet found it important to take the time to polish and post it with any urgency.

Before that, though I will very likely write some kind of “I’m back!” post, when I’m done writing my thesis, or maybe not until after I’ve defended it.  But what’s really next next is to get back to work on it, so I can be done it all the sooner.  (Not that the current timeframe can really be called “soon enough” by any stretch of the imagination!)

I will not likely respond to comments here in any reasonable time, mostly because I realize the comment system needs to be overhauled or something… bleh.  Someday, someday, always someday. ;)

I use the term “madness” not to mean anger, but something more like… craziness, but not in a negative way.  Or, aha, I know:  exuberance, fervour, zeal, intensity, vehemence!  But also sheer terror about how things are going to turn out.

Yeah.  That’s what I mean by madness.

There are two independent sources of madness that I’m experiencing already, both of which will change my life immensely when each comes to term.  I also expect to bring a third madness onto myself as well, sometime in all this:  the entrepreneurial career path I want to take, which I think can lead to a fascinating and well-balanced life if I do things correctly.  However, I don’t want to say more about that in this post, because it’s too early to be sure when or how it will happen, though I do need to figure that out this year as well, what with the other two madnesses being what they are.

So, I will soon be spiralling forward into my new life… and even just contemplating it all is making me dizzy.  I’ve been needing to write about this for awhile, and the start of the New Year seems like a perfect excuse to delve into it.  I also have been wanting to share my excitement and terror about these upcoming changes, and I feel that the time is finally right to do so.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. – Graham Greene

Thesis Madness

First of all, my thesis is currently almost at the point where I can call it “almost done“. (Yes, the double “almost” was intentional.)

What this means is: I’ve recently handed in the part that I’ve been calling “Chapter 2″, which sets up the mathematical model that I’m using to describe spin-1/2 particles in the Algebra of Physical Space.  I’m not sure yet if the idea I’ve applied might actually be completely illogical nonsense, but it all seemed necessary as I was trying to set up my thesis to cover more than merely the framework of a model.

Since I’m basically out of time, I’m not sure how much beyond the framework I’m going to go, but I think I need to go a bit further than where I am.

While I do have some calculations and writing on the things I could add to my thesis framework to give it some oomph, I’m at a point where I’d need to rewrite stuff from scratch to ensure it follows smoothly from the way I set things up in Chapter 2.  The model kept changing slightly as I found more interesting ways to look at things — at least, I hope they’re interesting! — and a few times, I was pretty sure I really was going mad while working on it, if the crazy laughter was any indication.  (My twitter posts have been tagged with #thesis #madness to commemorate this state of mind.)

I’m hoping to figure out some way to wrap up this “core” part of my thesis in the upcoming week, and perhaps take another week to write up some conclusions. (A big incredulous “HAH!” is on the tip of my tongue right now, so strong is my doubt that I can do this.)  I also still need to go back and finish up the introduction (which, so far, is almost completely lacking in anything about quantum theory), and soon! I’d really like to hand everything in early enough in the upcoming semester that I can excuse myself from paying for the semester in full.  Or, alternately, perhaps I can get enough done before the semester starts for real, that maybe I can comfortably do some teaching without being in my usual panic about how to do both teaching and thesis work.

So, I’m worried that I might not be able to finish what I want to do, or, worse, that what I have done is not at all appropriate or acceptible.  Fortunately, for the most part, I’ve been able to put aside the lack of confidence and just keep moving forward… leaving me only the fear that I’ll be asked to give up on my efforts before I’m ready.

A Mad Analogy

I’d heard several sources make a comparison between writing a thesis (or dissertation) and gestating a baby.  The first time I encountered this, it was meant to be comedic… and the conclusion was that writing a dissertation is harder than having a baby.  (I’m not sure this helped my frame of mind at all, now that I look back at it.)

The second time I heard this analogy, it was meant to reassure me by pointing out that there are some things in life that cannot be rushed.  Some things simply won’t be ready until they’re ready.  But there’s a huge difference between something that will continue developing slowly whether you are paying attention or not, and something that requires your attention or else it won’t develop at all.

There is also a huge difference between something that will rarely take much longer than nine months and something that not only has no fixed due date, but which also may require scrapping parts that don’t work out, or redoing parts that are close but not close enough to what is needed to clearly explain or fully explore the idea.

Worst of all, this childbirth analogy made me worry that I was not only taking too much time out of my life to work on this damn thesis, but that I was also potentially cheating myself out of the option of having children.  I think I was 31 or 32 when this awful analogy was sprung upon me for the second time (and I’m now 33), and it saddened me to realize that I could no longer attempt to have two kids, a few years apart, before hitting that “magic age” of 35 where certain statistics suddenly start leaping higher and higher into worry-zone.  And then what if conceiving turned out to be difficult for us?  Surely, checking this earlier in life would be a better idea than waiting too much longer.

This logic did not lead me to wanting to abandon my work, or my other plans for the future, even if my originally proposed timeline for everything was turning out to be a few years off.  However, now that I’m reviewing that post from New Year’s Day of 2008, I’m realizing that it has only been four years since I made that five-year plan.  Hmmm…!   So even if I haven’t yet completed my thesis and started my business and started a family, I still have another year to cram everything in…!

Madness, multiplying

So, here’s where the story gets most interesting, or at least, more mad than ever.

I am currently just over 4 months pregnant.

(Yes, I am posting this news on my blog before mentioning it on facebook or twitter, but I expect to share the news in both of those places very soon.)

This news terrified me at first, because I knew I didn’t have time to deal with the distraction of pregnancy, not to mention morning sickness, which I had already heard was somewhat of a misnomer because it could hit at any time, or last for weeks on end.  And I had no idea what else I would go through, either.  But it was happening, and the only option I could consider was to do my best, no matter what.

What I ended up doing was probably not my best, but how I could resist researching what I needed to know about pregnancy?  I went a little research-mad for about a week, and then tapered down when I started to feel like I knew enough to get through the next few months.  I got myself back to a work level where I was balancing thesis work, teaching work, and napping (the most effective anti-nausea remedy I had found), though there were still occasional days where I was unduly distracted by what was happening to me.

All things considered, I’m not surprised I got behind in my marking, even though I did it all in less time than ever before.  I am surprised, however, by how much better I did with returning to thesis work frequently, and without too much fuss (except on a few of the really rough days, or when I was panicking the most about finishing the marking in time to return work to the students).  Perhaps I was experiencing something like the woman in this article about writing a dissertation and having a baby in the same year:

“Having a firm due date on my pregnancy helped me to work steadily on my dissertation, to push through writer’s block when a nonpregnant graduate student might turn to piles of reading or, worse, go play endless rounds of bar trivia until inspiration returned. I didn’t have time to wait to be inspired or to chase down every lead. Instead, I just sat down every day and wrote the thing. Dissertation writing was as much a part of our baby preparation as putting together the crib and choosing a name.”

Ongoing madness

Unfortunately, I still didn’t get as much done in the fall semester as I’d hoped I would, and that’s how I got to where I am now (as described in the first section of this post).  Despite how pleased I am with my work, I am not pleased that I have to ask for another extension.  I am also not pleased that I feel that my best option is to play the Pregnancy Card, even though it is true that I was unwell enough (physically, and mentally, as I’m sure the maternal madness must count for something) that it interfered with my ability to finish and defend my thesis by the end of December.

But I do have a clearer picture of where my work is going, at least, so I should be able to write a very accurate analysis of what is left to do.  I’m just nervous about things not going quite the way I expect… but, strangely, I am somehow comforted by the thought that this is a normal part of what I am experiencing, in both the thesis uncertainty and the parenthood uncertainty.  Worry is normal, especially when responsible for a child’s upbringing and well-being.  (Which brings me back to worrying about how I’m going to generate some income, which means I’m back to hoping I can get this degree done as a way to boost my credentials in my own chosen entrepreneurial field, which leads me back to worrying about my thesis…)

I also found some comfort in this article about the labours of love which compares preparing a research degree and giving birth.  (Yes, my research into the analogy comparing these things was definitely inspiring, today.)  I do believe the article is right that both of these efforts will bring great joy, no matter how much difficulty is involved in bringing them to light.  And there certainly is a sort of crazy love happening to me already, regarding both of these “projects”.

(I must digress and share the fact that I gave the baby news to my dad by texting him a message asking if he could take a look at my latest project prototype:  I sent him the almost-two-month ultrasound picture.)

Whatever the final form of both the thesis and the baby, I know I will be happy to have them existing in the world, instead of just existing within me.  Who knows what either of them might contribute to the world as a whole!

Overall, I am really intrigued to see what my new life — not to mention this brand new living being! — will end up being like!  No matter what, this is surely setting up to be an exciting year.   Happy 2012 to one and all!

EDIT:  I have written my time extension proposal without mentioning the pregnancy!  Instead, I said that I am “deeply invested in finishing by the end of this winter semester due to an upcoming time commitment that will begin in early summer of this year”.  Muhaha.

Additional note:  I have decided I won’t be mentioning anything explicitly about the pregnancy on facebook or twitter until the next ultrasound, which is on January 13th (a Friday the 13th, oooo! good thing I’m anti-superstitious and figure it’s going to be a lucky day!).  This blog post was mentioned on my facebook news feed though, and at least two people have read it and congratulated us, which I found very exciting!  I’m not sure why feedburner didn’t post to twitter, though… hmmm.  Maybe I’ll fiddle with some things and make it happen.

At the same time, I know there is also some truth to thinking I really don’t have time for certain things, because I haven’t always made the best use of time in the past and there is always a threat of returning to that horrible state of existence. I really, really, really can’t afford to do that—“I don’t have time” to waste in that way!—because there are some things I’ve gotta do (hello, thesis!) that are becoming incredibly urgent to complete.

Ugh.

I’m not enjoying this blog post at all, so far.

It’s all about suffering and bad feelings!  This doesn’t seem helpful!

Didn’t I have some great idea of why I wanted to write about this? Oh yeah, I remember now: I wanted to mention how “I don’t have time” to blog. I mean, I “shouldn’t be making time” to blog, because there are other things (hello, thesis!) that are more urgent.

But at the same time, I’d like to keep active on my blog, even if only every few months or so. And it’s been quite awhile since my last real post (aside from updating an old post and reposting it anew); it’s been more than a few months, let’s say. This “wanting to post” won’t ever become urgent on its own, so I need to make the time, but I really shouldn’t, because there are other things (hello, thesis!) that are more urgent. <Insert deep sigh here.>

So what can I do about it?

I suppose the answer must be to work on whatever is extremely urgent (hello, thesis!), but take occasional breaks to do things that are enjoyable, like this writing and other writing, and photography and artwork (for which I haven’t posted much online anywhere in the past few years because “I don’t have time” to muck around with photos), and communicating with friends and family who are important to me but they might not know this because I rarely ever say it because “I don’t have time” to have meaningful friendships– ouch! Did I just say that?!

This has gotta stop. I mean, it will stop, and I’m so close to the end (goodbye, thesis?!), I’m taking this moment to really appreciate how much I dislike this feeling of “not having time” for what I want to do.

And I really, really, really don’t want to be in the habit of pushing aside things I think I don’t have time to do, just to endure whatever it is that is most pressing.  Because hell, I should be able to enjoy everything that harnesses my skills and creativity and deep thought processes.

Hello, thesis, you can come out of the parentheses now.

And I do enjoy working on my thesis, when things are going well.  When it’s going really well, and I’m on a good roll in which everything is awesome and interesting and exciting, I even take to calling my work ”thesis madness” when I mention it on twitter.

However, here’s the kicker:  I really don’t have time to do everything that I want to pursue in my research. I’m going to have to hand in just a small part of what I wanted to do and know is possible, because I’m being told (or rather, I’ve been told a few times now) that I have exceeded the time limit. This kind of sucks, because I had such grand hopes for what I would be able to do for my thesis, and I was even hoping that there was a chance it would be so awesome, someone would convince me (and give me permission to extend my studies longer) to call it a dissertation instead. But now I don’t see this as being very possible at all.

Part of the reason this is taking so long is that I keep feeling like I can’t proceed unless I derive absolutely everything that I’m using as stepping stones through my thought processes. Another part of the problem is that I keep finding new stepping stones between the ones I saw initially, and I keep feeling like I need to completely understand each one, deriving their link to the ones that I’d already noticed. And every time I find myself going around in circles like this, I get that feeling that I “don’t have time” to be adding more to the things I’ve already considered “done”, but I know of no other way to get through what I’m trying to say without doing it how I do it.

Oh and then there was the slightly older problem that I’ve never quite felt like I knew what to do at all, until I eventually realized that there was only one way that would work for me: my way.

Oh good, my way!

“Oh good! My way! Thank you, Vizzini.
…
Which way’s my way?” – Fezzik (from The Princess Bride)

Yeah, so, not only did I have to figure out what “my way” entails, but I had to overcome the delusion that my way couldn’t possibly be the right way, because everyone else is successful when they do things in other ways… so shouldn’t I learn about how they do things?

It’s obvious now that I really shouldn’t care about how other people do things—I “don’t have time” for that! But try to tell that to a person who is just starting to realize that she might be already doing things differently from others, while she is facing the fear that ‘differently’ might also mean ‘incorrectly’—not to mention, worrying that she “doesn’t have time” to figure out her own way. After all, throughout her life of schooling, there was always a correct way, a best way, a way that is going to get better marks than if the thing is done another way.

So is it any wonder I spent so much time researching how to write a thesis (I’d link to the resources I found, but I didn’t feel satisfied by what I read and so I just kept on feeling clueless… though I did just do a search of what was out there, in case something caught my eye and reminded me of something useful I’d found, and I found an awesome article about how not to write a PhD thesis that I wish I’d read earlier)? Not to mention all the time I spent researching things like time management and self-improvement and procrastination, and making all those efforts to analyze my struggles and fight them off by harnessing brilliant epiphanies about how to be better at life.  (Heck, even through all that, I’m sure I was thinking I “don’t have time” for the depths I’m exploring but then found myself unable to pull myself out of the train of thought because it was too interesting to simply abandon!)

Noticing some things

I am coming to terms with my own ways, though. And this means a lot of interesting things, I’m noticing.

For one thing, sometimes it is best to just seize the inspiration and go ahead and do something that isn’t what I planned to do originally, because I would be upset if I missed the opportunity. Some examples:

• Photography: I can’t NOT take pictures when I see something incredible or beautiful or interesting. (I just don’t bother taking the time to share them or caption or tag them or anything else other than make sure they are automatically uploaded to folders that are sorted by date.)
• Haiku writing: if I notice an idea or thought or way of explaining something in five or seven syllables, or it can be easily turned into something with five then seven syllables, I’ll stop and brainstorm the rest of it and then post the haiku as soon as I can. Or if I get stuck, I’ll either jot it down somewhere to finish later, or just junk it. I’m getting better at going with the flow in this, which is nice.
• Journal writing: If I have an urge to do journalling, nothing can stop me. Nothing. So I always answer these urges to write, and I burst forth with oodles of words in which I analyze myself, or soothe my worries, or even just summarize how things are going. While all of these tend to be useful, the summarizing is surely the best: it helps me get perspective of where I am, and leads me into thinking about where I’m going. And once I’ve summarized, I feel the journalling urge fade away enough so that I can focus on other things.
• Tangents to my thesis: sometimes I can’t help but follow up on the ideas I have, especially when they seem to lead down particularly peculiar rabbit holes. Even if those ideas turn out to be nonsense, I can’t just pass them up without thinking about them for awhile, even if the only outcome is a scribbled note thrown onto my pile of miscellaneous thoughts.
• Learning something new and exciting about anything, anything at all! …Okay, this isn’t a great example of something I should do, but it is one of those opportunities that I do seize when it occurs to me, because who knows when it will occur to me again to look up Whatever Thing Captured My Curiosity.

Alas, sometimes my creativity and curiosity ends up pulling me all over the place, and I get so wrapped up in it that I forget to watch the time. Eventually, I notice that too many hours have passed, and I’ve screwed up what I’d expected of myself, and then dismay leads to distraction, and it all snowballs from there. At least, that’s what I think happens, and I’m still not very good at stopping it—though turning to journalling or haiku tends to help, because those things bring my attention to the struggles in a positive way.

Harnessing time, bit by bit

Another way I help myself is by simply setting a timer and actively keeping myself focused for however much time I set. I originally found this idea through FlyLady, who suggests it as a way to keep housework from becoming an insanely aggravating task.  I find totally does help me feel like I am capable of keeping up with most of the housework, most of the time, which is way better than I used to be (back when I was sure I didn’t have time to do the housework well enough to even bother doing much of it at all).

Then again, there were a few realizations that apply to housework that helped me get over this “I don’t have time for housework” feeling:

• housework never ends, and so every little bit of effort just helps make things a little better, for awhile;
• every little bit of effort helps;
• it doesn’t take much time or effort to make things a little better, and a little is often good enough;
• I actually like my home to be clean and shiny and smelling nice, so cleaning can be for me;
• the effort just needs to be applied frequently, especially if not applied for an extended duration, in order for the impact to be noticeable.

I was looking forward to applying these ideas to thesis work too, but somehow, it feels different when it is a huge task that is supposed to get smaller but never seems to do so, even when more attention is given to it. The realizations about thesis work had some similarities, but in some cases were totally different:

• the thesis is supposed to end, but it keeps getting bigger because of all the things that need to be included, which is frustrating;
• every little bit of effort doesn’t necessarily help, because some things end up needing to be removed because they are totally wrong or unhelpful;
• it does take quite a bit of time and effort to make myself feel better about where I am in my work;
• my writing can be for me, though this makes it even more disappointing when things don’t go the way I hope they will;
• effort definitely needs to be applied frequently for the impact to be noticeable.

Fortunately, the idea of using a timer still helps—and lately, I’ve been having some great success with the Pomodoro Technique, especially when I am not alone in the work sessions (thanks, L!). This is because every little bit of time spent is somehow useful, even if it involves working on an idea for hours only to realize that it can’t be a part of the final product.

What I mean is, I’ve gotta stop thinking that I don’t have time to make mistakes, because screwing up is all part of the process. Even more importantly, I’ve gotta realize that all the time I spend on my thesis is pretty much inevitable: whether it is the mistakes I make or the successes I have, it is all part of what it takes to get the ideas out of my head and onto the page.

And I’ve gotta remember that starting to work also means that there will be breaks, which are much more fulfilling than what happens when I’m resisting beginning and end up distractedly looking at whatever shiny things grab my attention. I need to remember that I DO have time for breaks, as long as they are between work sessions and they don’t get out of control.

Staying in control?!

This blog post definitely got out of control, even though I worked on it on several separate occasions. In each case, it was not a break; it was a sustained mental outburst happening in only a semi-controlled manner.

(Yes, I realize that “semi-controlled” is just another way of saying “semi-out-of-control”. And if I don’t exactly know where the line is between being in control and out of it… I’m probably not having much luck staying in control. Just sayin’.)

But it’s so hard to resist staying here and finishing it, because this line of thinking is golden, and I need to record it for posterity! NEEEEEEED TO! So what if I don’t have time to blog right now! I HAVE THINGS THAT MUST BE SAID!

Ugh, aha, there’s the guilt that accompanies that line of thinking. Conflict of priorities! Or, more precisely, it’s the fact that my true priority (hello, thesis!) is in conflict with joyous creativity and useful self-analysis… ugh.

And yet despite that reality check, here I am, writing about my thesis instead of writing my thesis. All because I was having a dilemma about the phrase “I don’t have time” that kept drifting through my way of seeing things…

Well, I also knew that this writing would help me out, because I knew I’d feel encouraged by accomplishing “at least something” that has been bothering me for long enough.  And now it’s time to step back into thesis mode, because it too has been bothering me for long enough. (By which I mean, way too long, really, but that’s not a useful way to think about it.)

Alright then! So am I ready now? IT DOESN’T MATTER! It’s GO time! Because I don’t have time for it to be any other time.

I kinda wanted to share where we’re going camping, but at the same time, I also wanted to keep it secret… so I grabbed the Google Satellite imagery from the area just to give an idea of the terrain.

I will say, though, that it’s deep in Northern Ontario, a little north of halfway between Sudbury and Timmins, but quite aways off the main highway… and the secondary highway for that matter. We take a dirt logging road, part of which can be seen at the bottom left of the image above.

And then we take to the water!! The path marked in blue traces the rivers we take to get to the tiny little lake that contains the tiny little island where we usually camp. The blue path is 10 miles exactly (according to Google), or 16 km to those of us more familiar with metric. And the whole way is absolutely stunningly beautiful…

We camped here in ‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, not ‘07 (because we used our vacation days for our honeymoon instead), ‘08, ‘09, ’10, and we’re preparing ‘11!

I’m SO looking forward to it, I’m probably going to be tweeting and facebooking a lot about it as I’m heading up there! Be warned! :P

Yes, this is another post inspired by Shiva Nata, but no Shiva Nata is needed to understand this post, though I am going to mention some aspects of it very vaguely in order to give an example of how it has led me to understand my relationship with challenge.

Shiva Nata and its Epiphanies

The most important thing to note is that the Shiva Nata guide claims that there is a correlation between being challenged and experiencing epiphanies:  when the mind is struggling to piece together the patterns from the physical/mental workout that this Dance is, it also is more likely to piece together other information having to do with life experiences and ways of handling them.

This is partly because pretty much everything we do in life involves patterns which have become habits, and when we become aware of the many ways a pattern can be mixed up, by reversing it or changing the starting position or even doing it some new and unexpected way, we can see the same kind of opportunities to mix up our own unhelpful patterns.  Or, at very least, we start to notice the patterns themselves, thus allowing ourselves to contemplate the beginning of investigating what to do about them.

In Dance of Shiva, if we keep reiterating the same known patterns, we don’t end up learning ways to mix them up.  If we don’t get the motions wrong, our minds never have to figure out new ways of remembering how the patterns are pieced together.  The lack of challenge lets our minds relax into familiarity, so no new understanding or growth takes place.  If the mind is not changing, not learning how to observe or manipulate patterns, it can forget how to be flexible and learn and change and grow in other ways too.

So, What About Challenge?

The mind can also, I’ve found, forget that challenge can be fun.  (It can?!)  Challenge doesn’t necessarily, automatically, always have to mean ugh, stress, yuck, difficulty, yearning for it to be over.  Challenge can be a fascinating way to demonstrate ability, or a useful way to find out what else needs to be learned.  It can also bring great rewards of understanding, which I feel is a very worthy and important goal.  But I had forgotten this, and found myself wrapped up in the yuck part of challenge.

This was especially prominent in my thesis work, where all the yuck-challenge made it difficult to move forward.  However, since I’ve started challenging myself with Shiva Nata, I’ve also been finding it much easier to face the challenge of figuring out “What Happens Next” in my thesis.  Noticing that curiosity is a better starting place than panic was just one step; I still had to acknowledge that there was some fear about the challenge, and see about finding ways to assure myself that I could handle the challenge.  I think the fact that I’ve been practicing something else challenging (Shiva Nata) has helped this immensely.  However, I’m still noticing more things about myself and how I face challenges.

Challenges in Shiva Nata

For example, when I was first learning the Level 1 Shiva Nata arm sequences, I wanted to analyze the patterns in detail and learn them awesomely, so I wrote down the steps.  I eventually worked my way up to not liking practicing with the DVD, because it either went so slow that I felt unchallenged, or it went so fast I didn’t have time to think about each step.  I didn’t like messing up (that’s definitely a pattern of mine!) or having to just keep going even after making a mistake (pattern!), so I didn’t do the fast steps.  In order to increase the challenge, then, I kept expanding what I could do, even if I could still only do them slowly.

Eventually, I let myself try the Level 2 arm positions, after carefully making sure I was really good at knowing how the Level 1 arm positions flowed into one another, because Level 2 involves both of the Level 1 patterns (horizontal and vertical), doing one with each hand.  I was surprised to discover that I was remarkably good at the Level 2 arm patterns, thanks to my practice with Level 1.  However, I was resisting writing down the patterns, and I told myself it was because I wanted to make sure it remains at least a bit of a challenge… although, really, I think I was just afraid to take responsibility for knowing what to do next.  (Pattern!)

So, partly in order to not have to learn Level 2 in detail and partly because Level 2 sequences are long enough make my arms quite tired, I returned to Level 1 to see if I could find combinations of steps that could perplex me.  One thing I tried was doing leg sequence 1 followed by leg sequence 2, because the motions are similar but different enough to be confusing.  I discovered I have no problems doing these slowly and carefully, and so I tried them fast instead.  I was drastically humbled by the experience:  I probably got maybe 5% of the movements right, maybe up to 25% half right (with either the feet or arms doing the right thing).

When Screwing Up is a Good Thing

Perhaps surprisingly, I was elated by my inability.  I was not just confused and failing;  I felt incredibly, deliciously lost, and giggling madly because of it, which was extremely uplifting (since as they say, laughter is an excellent medicine).  Plus, this confusion chased away the worry that I was mastering the Dance of Shiva too quickly and getting close to running out of instructional material (yeah, I might’ve been getting a little cocky with that worry, but it was there).

Best of all, though, this challenge of doing the same stuff faster is going to encourage my mind to continue coming up with epiphanies.  Heck, starting to understand my relationship with challenge is quite an epiphany already, especially the profound fact that it is SO helpful to try and fail when looking to make progress.  Failure is a part of progress, not its opposite.  However, failure to try can definitely make progress impossible in some cases.

So, even though the challenges involved in Shiva Nata and in thesis writing are quite different, progress in both can be accelerated just by floundering forward, letting repeated trials (or edits) smooth out the difficult parts.  Just knowing that I can be okay in the face of challenge, or even in the face of fumbling up wildly, means that a challenge in itself does not invoke as much anxiety as past challenges had.

This feeling almost reminds me of my complete lack of test anxiety, back when I had classes and exams.  I used to see those as opportunities to demonstrate my knowledge, and I would sit down and face them like an absolute champ.  Then again, I pretty much was a champ because I was awesome at taking tests, since it was all about reiterating things that I already knew.  The real challenge was in learning, and — oh!  I always used to procrastinate studying, perhaps because it was the thing I found most challenging!  So this pattern isn’t new!!!

I love figuring things out. :)