Hi folks,
Finally, we approach the end... right?
My original intent when I started this series was for today to serve as the sixth and final installment of my 'daily reminders' breakdown. Alas, I'd forgotten how a prediction is merely a way to set a date for my next mistake. The chain of events is simple enough - I first set today as an end date for this series, then I went ahead and set a weekly word limit a couple of months later. The post I had prepared for today would have exceeded that limit so I'm kicking the can down the road a couple of weeks.
This is where I suspect the true challenge of competing priorities lies - when two things are equally important, destiny always waits for a collision to help reveal the true rank order. I suppose my willingness to sacrifice my schedule in favor of a word limit demonstrates a certain willingness to adjust with the times. However, I feel that if I say I will do something on a specific date, I should deliver on time. My apologies, reader, and we'll try to avoid this form of mishap in the future.
We won't leave you hanging today, though. The last block of reminders is described in this link (one I've surely included on TOA in the past). Here is how it appears on my daily reminders sheet:
-> An artist must make time for the long periods of solitude
*Be a good steward to your gifts
*Protect your time
*Feed your inner life
*Avoid too much noise
*Read good books
*Have good sentences in your ears
*Be by yourself as often as you can
*Walk
*Take the phone off the hook
*Work regular hours
These reminders are, in short, ways to keep my creative work in mind when life brings me a series of more pressing concerns. I think it's an appropriate way to conclude my reminders because although creative work is never the main thing on my mind, over the past few years it's proven a great source of stability around which I center and build on my other activities. It's fitting that these reminders come at the end of the list because it addresses ways I can answer the question we all ponder at the end of the day - what will exist only if I make it? By keeping these reminders in mind, I feel that at the very least I increase my odds, just a little bit, of reaching the deepest and quietest depths of the soul where creative work packs its bags in preparation for its journey through the heart, into the mind, and out into the world.
