I always tell myself when I start blogging, then stop, then start again that this time I’m really going to stick with it. But it always turns out to be quite a struggle for me.
I think of elaborate ideas and ways to piece together words to pour out my heart, but wow at the end of the day when I sit down and have time to write it’s the last thing I do.
It’s definitely not the last thing I want to do, it’s just the last thing I actually do, and normally by the time I get around to getting started I’m too tired to flush out the ideas I carried around and thought about all day.
It’s a battle, not doing the things I want to and instead continually doing the things I don’t want to. (I take comfort knowing I’m not the only one who has had this problem. Paul of the Bible wrote about his struggle with this in Romans 7:15. Of course our circumstances are very different, but still helpful to know I’m not alone in this).
For me, this means wasting quite a bit of time poking around the internet. Looking at this site here, researching this thing there, checking out this persons life here, and it sort of just ridiculously goes on and on. Next thing I know I’ve squandered away a ton of time, again.
It gets frustrating, and I’ll frequently say how I really really wish I had more time to sit down, write, and get it all out. But then I realize that the only point of frustration is my own lack of self discipline in this area.
And so here I am tonight, actually writing.
I pulled myself away from the lure of just mindlessy browsing the Internet, subconsciously allowing whatever I come across into my heart and into my life.
Doing some comparing, feeling inadequate, and maybe a bit envious anyone? That’s how I feel a lot of the time after I’ve purused around the Internet.
I don’t even think it happens at a conscious level, the comparing and dissatisfaction that comes from spending too much time on the Internet looking at other people’s lives and the way they do things. It’s almost like its a subtle subconscious but pretty damaging thing that happens.
I’ll start off good, going from website to website feeling pretty okay about my own life and what I accomplished that day only to log off feeling a bit off, feeling a little bit more and more discontent each day after a session of browsing.
So tonight I stopped myself from going down the same hole I have been night after night (the thing I don’t want to do) and instead I opened up my writing app on my phone and started writing (the thing I want to do).
I thought for sure out would come some of the deeper thoughts and feelings I’ve had lately about special needs parenting combined with parenting a “typical” child, or some of the organizational tips I’ve implemented recently that have really helped calm our house quite a bit, or even about some of the possible tough things health wise on the horizon for my son.
Instead of a post about any one of those things, out came a post about how dissatisfied I often feel as a result of undisciplined time roaming the Internet and how its keeping me from doing something that I really want to do, (write) and that the only one to blame is myself.
That might sound harsh to myself but I’m actually pretty glad I can blame myself. Because that also means I can change myself.
It means I can take a very honest look at how I’m really using my time, how where I’ve been spending my time really makes me feel, and make changes accordingly. Recognizing a problem is half the battle, right?
So I’m hoping that by being honest and acknowledging that, “hey, I have a problem with too much aimless wandering time on the Internet that subsequently results in feelings of failure and dissatisfaction,” that I will be able to take the steps necessary to curb that habit and replace it with a more rejuvenating refreshing one.
And I really hope that habit I replace it with is writing here on this blog on a regular basis.
It is what I really want to do.
I hope that it ends up being what I do.
