“We were made to accomplish the easy
things and made to live through the things that are
hard.” ~ Charles Bukowski
We were made to accomplish the easy things.
There are a million little easy things that can eat up a day. This app has a number, check it. Clear it. Read it. Respond to it. Like it. Share it. Email it. Save it. Bookmark it. Make a note of it. Cross it off. Make a phonecall. Write it down. Make a mental note. Let it go. Talk it out. Pick it up. Put it away. Move it again. Water the plants. Take it off. Wave it away. Say hello. Kiss goodbye.
We were made to accomplish the easy things.
These things in our lives that challenge us like a game of bop the badger or whatever it’s called. We build blocks, and we knock them down. We build it again. We move it. We change it. We look at it. We like it. We hate it. We stop. We start again.
We were made to accomplish the easy things.
As I sit here, I hear the hum of the people in this cafe. I see the couple who just moved outside. Made a table their own. The petitioner outside saying hello. Wanting to talk. The guy who just threw his jacket on the chair to save it while he gets something to eat. The cars, taking a right. Stopping. Taking a left.
One foot in front of the other, we were made to accomplish the easy things.
I talk about this a lot – and have been holding it very consciously in this new/re-discovered chapter of my business: the importance of decomplexifying.
I feel like I have more control and awareness around this now. There aren’t necessarily a million things to do as there was before. And maybe that was my issue. I took on too much. I tried to do too much. I tried to do it all. I was being driven by ‘not good enough.’ And that not good enough meant I clearly wasn’t working hard enough. As trains move faster, do they need more coal? Or is there a centrifugal energy that actually enables them to require less coal as they propel themselves faster and faster down the tracks?
I have hit many times in my career that I’ve found myself working for hours. Working too hard. For too long. Perfectionism. Not knowing where to stop. Not prioritizing.
Stopping to do the admin work. Stepping back to recognize what’s the most important thing I need to be doing right now. What are my priorities right now, and what do I need to start working on right now in order to get where I want?
I feel like I’ve been doing great at this – but what does that mean to be doing great? What’s the measure for that? Who says so? What was the goal in the first place?
Setting goals and timelines is key.
We were made to accomplish the easy things, but with so many of these easy things in our lives, how often are we just on a hamster wheel, going from one thing to the next to the next, without any recognition of the path we are on, let alone the celebration of what we’ve accomplished thus far. This is important and crucial to our being conscious as we walk through this life.
Conscious choices.
Conscious steps.
Conscious accomplishment.
As an artist, it’s nice to be unconscious. It’s nice to roll through our lives in a flow, letting the current take us where it may. However, sometimes this can take us out to sea before we know it. And we must stay aware of the times when we we’re no longer steering our own ship. The current has us, and before we know it we’re wading in foreign waters. Having to paddle harder, and longer to find our way back to the bays where we live and the waterways we intended to take.
Feeling lost and coming home again is tied to how we are made to accomplish the easy things… and made to live through the things that are hard.
Originally written some time in February, 2013
