Filed under: life
I need some time away from the internet. Shortly before Garrett was born I sensed this, half-ass tried it, but caved. There is a severe lack of discipline in my life right now, and I need to cut loose the non-essential stuff – blogging, myspace, facebook, etc. I have a compulsive personality that unfortunately gets me into non-essential stuff.
So tomorrow – Monday – I will take a break from non-work internet stuff. It being Monday brings me back to a song I wrote a few years ago. In this song are the best lyrics I’ve ever penned:
The bane of my intent is reason
Endless planning, nothing done
This lack of acts amounts to treason
To the man I should become
The song is called “It’ll happen on Monday,” and it’s about how my compulsiveness always mandates that I start new ventures on Monday. I’ve tried other days. Doesn’t work. Needs to be Monday. Anyway…
It is likely important that I jot down why I’m doing this – my mental state of this dreary Sunday afternoon:
I feel displaced and awkward at my core lately when it comes to just hanging out with people. Conversely, place me in front of a few VPs at a business meeting or a business owner whom is considering using D&A Design, and I’m totally confident, calm, purposeful, and comfortable in my skin. But if I’m just hanging out with a few new friends I’m a ball of anxiety, unsure of what to do, what to talk about, etc. This is pathetic. I am not sure why or how I got to this place.
Ten years ago I experienced the exact opposite: I journeyed through a season of life where I journaled how I felt like I had been given a giant crate labeled “dan,” and in this crate was who I was at the time. I kept pulling stuff out of this crate with a great degree of satisfaction and sometimes bewilderment, but I knew that by working through some crap in the season prior, I had come into a realization of purpose and identity.
Right now my identity is wrapped up in titles: Business owner, father, husband, and so on. This is not to say that I do not thoroughly enjoy, and am humbled by these new roles. They’re great. Far better, far more enriching than I ever thought it would be. But the garden of my being needs to be weeded. Sometimes I need to kick my ass into shape – hard but good discipline.
I need to get to bed earlier. Since becoming self-employed I’ve gone back to staying up late. I love working on a project late at night with AM talk radio on in the background. I’ve taken a ton of overnight road trips with Art Bell as my only companion when Andrea and I were long-distance dating. There’s just something about the night.
But I am now a morning person. I absolutely love 6am. When my alarm sounds, I’m out of bed immediately. Snooze is not an option. So I need to face the facts that the season of life for late nights is over, and God has blessed me with joy for mornings.
I need to eat better, too. More variety, more planned-out meals so as to not waste time.
I need to get my yard back into shape when it warms up. Lots of plans here – chicken wire will go up in certain areas so as to reclaim areas where dogs have trampled.
In short, I need more discipline.
