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When I was a younger lad I went through a phase where I was surprisingly disciplined. For certain reasons, later I would actually work on flying by the seat of my pants instead. Suffice it to say I'm now working on swinging that pendulum back in the other direction and with the birth of my child I'm finding a very helpful situation for that. No longer am I on my own schedule. Just about every 2 or 3 hours or so I get up with my wife and prepare to feed our crying baby. In addition to feeding comes the other end of that process and so there are times when I must wake up, or simply get up, and change the diaper. When the obvious needs are already met, I must find a way to soothe our baby and that is a whole art unto itself. In short, there are many demands in place where previously I was used to doing pretty much whatever floated into my head at the moment...and I love it...mostly.
It's aggravating to hear a baby scream at the top of its little lungs when you just woke up and all you want is to go back to sleep. It's harder to change diapers and warm the supplemental formula and behave in a soothing manner. It takes discipline. Of course, the love I feel for baby Benjamin provides all the motivation I need, but I'm finding that this discipline of raising a baby has seeped into other areas too. My little garden which has become a jungle of grasses and weeds, in some places 3 feet high, is now about 2/3 cleared (I'm just waiting for the yard waste bin to get picked up). I just installed an overhead cabinet I pilfered from a job-site months ago, and am continuing to do all the many things I've let lapse when I had more time, but somehow less energy.
Lately I've had the thought that life is a strange sort of perpetual motion mechanism. The harder you work, the easier it is to work and maintain a higher level of effort; the more you allow excuses to flood into your mind, the easier it is to make excuses and to half-ass your life away. Not that any of you folks here at Aikiweb should give two farts, but I've been very good at half-assing my life away...and I gotta say, for all the talk and thoughts about what could be, I've never been so happy or closer to making those thoughts a reality as right now. And before I enjoy that feeling a little too much, I'm off to do some work so my perpetual motion can maintain the higher standard I've been experiencing.
Thank you for the space to consider this in my favorite form, the word.
Gambatte
Ogenkide
Matt's now on his way.
Cheers.
07-07-2009 01:27 PM 