#382 Today you’ll chase fulfilment
Today, you’ll force yourself to chase fulfilment, not instant pleasure.
Because when you start getting the taste what’s on the other side of your avoidance…
Soon enough you won’t need brute force anymore.
Today, you’ll force yourself to chase fulfilment, not instant pleasure.
Because when you start getting the taste what’s on the other side of your avoidance…
Soon enough you won’t need brute force anymore.
I’ve tirelessly written at least 300 journal entries on the same topic in the belief that in the 301st, I’ll strike gold and find the exact words I’m looking for.
And it took me a while to accept that that’s an illusion.
Maybe every attempt is really just the same struggle to find the right words for ideas, thoughts, insights that were never meant to be captured into words in the first place?
And yet I bend, I twist, I turn, I squirm,
I write, re-write
and never am I satisfied.I get closer, or so I think
And then the next day, I jump back in
and instantly sink.I need answers…
Even though deep down I know,
the only certainty is that I’ll never get them.Yet, I have to try.
Because while every day of writing is a struggle, the true value lies in the daily struggle of writing.
Although it might look like I’m not making progress, writing and creativity is just not a linear process.
In reality, as long as a I write every day, I’m focusing my mind on what I’m trying to say. I’m sculpting away, and someway, somehow the essence will emerge from my 300 journal entries and reveal itself.
How? I don’t know.
When? I don’t know.
Probably not while I’m writing (read why here)… even though the writing is what makes it possible.
Anyway.
Now I know day 1, 11, 50, 299, 300, 301, 3001 are all equally important…
I’m finally ready to accept the struggle
and write in peace.
Try to hold me back. Put obstacles in my way. Do whatever you want. But this new habit is here to stay.
Good things happen when you say those words to the world.
Even better things happen when you say those exact same words to yourself.
Your anger is real. But you are not your anger.
Your worries are real. But that doesn’t mean it’s rooted in reality.
You aren’t scared. You feel scared.
You are not your emotions. Emotions are not your identity.
You don’t need to learn how to write, run, or learn a language yet if you haven’t learned to write daily, run daily, or learn a language daily.
No how-to program, but take-action-today program.
If, in defiance of every limiting belief you have about yourself, you started to write every day, and you’re sticking to it, what else can you do that you previously thought impossible?
This is how the world becomes your oyster.
You’re a writer now.
And that means you’re starting to have a shot at being a good writer.
Before I learned not to listen
I would stand
seemingly still
but secretly swaying
swallowed up by a willow tree
and its play with the windBefore I learned not to listen
I would hold my head against the rind
reach
reconnect with an old friend
the way it has always felt best
cheek pressed to chestBefore I learned not to listen
a breeze in the leaves
rustling ruminating
would sound like raindrops in my ears
making my eyes answer
with a torrent of tearsBefore I learned not to listen
a rolling thunder
thumping like a beating heart
would rumble from my cheek to my ear
replacing my fear
with a memory I used to held dear
we were never really apartBefore I learned not to listen
before the lust for language
reduced what I could see
and sense within
I would allow the whispers of the wordless world
speak to me like kinBefore I learned not to listen
Lukas Van Vyve
I would accept
that once upon a time
I remembered your name
and once upon a time we both knew
we were one and all the same