Nobody Cares If You Don’t Write
I weight train twice a week, Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings. As I was lacing my shoes this morning, about to leave the gym, an old lady on her way in remarked, “Are you done already?” in a tone of surprise. It was 8:15 am. The gym opens at 7:30 am, and I was there on the dot. “All done! I’m here as soon as the gym opens and get it over with.”, I replied cheerfully. Not because I have this iron willpower or am the poster girl of self-discipline. In fact, I’m the exact opposite. But I’ve learned the hard way that I lose as soon as I start debating whether to train or not. So you see, one way of manifesting my creativity is coming up with better and better excuses for why I couldn’t train that day.
To cut a long story short, I found that the best way to deal with my penchant for making up excuses was to just do it. Just do it. Schedule the time in my calendar, have the gym clothes and the bag ready by the door, then be out of the house in minutes once the alarm clock rings. Not questioning the form of the day, not debating pros and cons, not making up an excuse. Just do it.
The crazy thing is that I love it once I’m at the gym! 45 minutes fly by, and I head home, feeling relaxed and not a little virtuous. It’s just the beginning that is hard, getting over the initial resistance.
Very similar to writing, I mused as I was heading home after another training session, gone from reluctance to exhilaration in minutes. I love having written. But starting to write? Pure hell.
Be Your Own Boss
You have to be your own slave master and be willing to hold the whip yourself if you want to write. Nobody is going to do that for you. Unlike a job where you have a manager to push you, writing demands to be your own boss. Nobody will set your deadlines and goals, monitor your progress, or demand status reports. You’re on your own.
If your dream is to write and you don’t write, nothing happens. Apart from the soul-wrenching fact you haven’t written, that is. And guess what? If you don’t hold yourself accountable and push yourself, if you don’t force yourself to stick to your routines and do the work, if you don’t write, in other words – nobody will care. NOBODY WILL CARE. It’s your dream, not other people’s. At best, they might feel sorry for you if you failed to produce the science-fiction novel of your dreams that you talked so much about. But that’s it, a few fleeting seconds and “I’m sorry it didn’t work, mate!”. Then they move on with their lives, leaving you with your unfinished novel and the bitter taste of failure in your mouth.
How do you move the needle? How do you push through that initial resistance, that apparently insurmountable mountain blocking your path? How do you start writing even when you don’t want to?
The Power of Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is what takes you from dreaming to fulfilling your dream. Self-discipline is doing what you must do to reach your goals, even when you don’t want to. Especially when you don’t want to do it. Have you noticed how tempting house cleaning, for instance, is when you have to do something you don’t want to do? Arranging your drawers is suddenly a delight, not a chore. Sorting your books by color seems the best use of your time. Your mind, the traitor, gets creative and comes up with lots of other things you could do instead of writing.
And this is your chance when those treacherous ideas start to form. Nip them in the bud immediately. Don’t let that thought be fully formed or that idea take root in your mind because you’ve lost if they do. Push back directly. No is a powerful word; use it!
“No, I can’t wash the windows now; it’s my writing time.”
” No, I can’t arrange my socks now; it’s my writing time.”
“No! No distractions! It’s my writing time.”
Don’t negotiate or allow any discussions. Instead, decide that you’ll follow your plan for that day and do what you had planned to do, which was to write. Just do it. As simple as that. I didn’t say it was easy.
Make It Easier to Get Started
Can you make it easier?
Well, as a matter of fact, I can.
I prepare for writing as I prepare for my training, making it quick and easy to get started. This means setting the alarm in the evening, laying out the breakfast things in the kitchen, and making my workspace ready for a new writing session at the end of a writing session.
Workspace readiness is different for different people, as it should be. For my part, it involves tidying up my desk, removing coffee cups and cat hairs (if you have pets, you know what I mean), putting back papers and pens in their holders, and refilling the water bottle.
(Yes, the water won’t be super fresh the next morning, but you have no idea how treacherous filling a bottle can be! This is how it goes: I’ll walk to my desk, fully intending to write, then realize that I need water. I go to the kitchen and start filling the bottle, gazing through the window all the while. Then a deer runs past, or a squirrel jumps on the low stone wall or the sparrow hawk flies by. My curiosity picked, I leave the bottle on the counter and stand by the window to see what would happen next. That doe is usually not alone; her two fawns must be following shortly. That red squirrel is so cute; I can watch her shenanigans all day. Would the sparrow hawk just fly by or go for one of the small birds in the bushes? And so it goes, the monkey mind jumping from one thought to another. Half an hour has gone by before I’m back at my desk. Hence, I fill the bottle the night before. One source of distraction eliminated.)
When I sit at my desk in the morning, it’s a pleasure to see a well-organized workplace with everything I need in its place (including the water bottle). It’s easy then just to sit down and start working.
Getting started is still daunting, but I’ve found that stopping for the day when things go well works wonders. This way, I can start right away next time as I know exactly what to do. I don’t lose any time staring into space, paralyzed by the blank page. The start is already there, and the only thing I need to do is continue where I left it the day before. And once I’ve started, it’s easy to keep going.
And Maybe a Carrot?
I also like to use carrots, small rewards I give myself if I follow the plan. A small piece of chocolate, watching squirrels, going for a walk, creating a composite squirrel photo, or maybe buying a new book on a tough day. (You have no idea how many bad days I have!). Anything pleasurable, anything that I can look forward to, a carrot dangling in front of me to take me through the challenging moments, a motivator helping me stay focused when I’m struggling.
Besides, there’s a bonus: positive reinforcement. Every time I reward myself for having written, I teach that monkey brain that writing is a pleasurable thing, something I enjoy. Writing is joy, not anxiety. That will make associating writing with positive feelings rather than apprehension easier. In time, it becomes a habit. Wake up, have breakfast, sit down, and write. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more. Don’t overthink it; just do it. Wonderful things will happen to those who wait write every day, inspired or not.
Conclusion
Self-discipline is essential when it comes to writing. It is the ability to stay focused and committed to your goals, even when it’s hard. Remember the three things: make it easy to get started, say no and just do it, and reward yourself along the way.
You can’t change the past but you can still shape your future. So become your own boss and coach. Make choices today that will make your future better. If you sit down and write every day, even for a few minutes, in time, you’ll have a significant amount of writing done. A page a day means 365 pages at the end of the year and a lot of practice learning the craft.
In the long term, the reward of self-discipline is fulfillment. The opposite is regret. Nobody but you will care if your dream quietly dies on the way.
The pain of self-discipline will never be as great as the pain of regret.
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Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
Hast thou 2 loaves of bread
Sell one + with the dole
Buy straightaway some hyacinths
To feed thy soul.
Ezra Pound (1885 –1972) was one of the most influential but also most difficult poets of the 20th century.
If you think this doesn’t look like like your typical Ezra Pound poem, you’re right. It’s not. Or not really. It seems that Pound reworked an old poem by James Terry White, called “Not By Bread Alone” (1907).
If thou of fortune be bereft,
James Terry White
And in thy store there be but left
Two loaves—sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
You can read the whole story here. Which version do you like best? I’m partial to Pound’s version myself.
To read more poems, click here.
Favorite Photos: March 2023
Some of my favorite photos from March: a kangaroo, birds, and red squirrels. I’m still processing photos from my recent Australia trip, so more kangaroos and koalas to come! And squirrels, always squirrels ❤️.
First out, the cutest Kangaroo Island kangaroo female (Macropus fuliginosus fuliginosus).
The very rare Kangaroo Island Glossy Black-Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus).
The Kangaroo Island subspecies is listed as endangered, with a population of about 450 birds before the devastating bushfires of 2019/2020. 75% of their habitat in the western part of Kangaroo Island was impacted by the bushfires. They feed exclusively on Drooping She-oak seeds and only on particular trees in the forest, making their survival even more challenging.
I was thrilled and awed to be able to find them and see them going about their business in the wild.
A Crimson rosella juvenile (Platycercus elegans), easily identified by the olive-green body plumage that will turn blue/red in adulthood. I photographed this young rosella at Stokes Bay, not in the bush as you may think but in the parking lot. I was headed to the beach to photograph hooded plovers when I noticed this handsome fellow and took a few quick photos. Good thing I did, as I couldn’t find any hoodies on the beach that day.
I don’t remember having so much snow at the end of March, almost half a meter twice in the past two weeks! The squirrels have been busy, looking for hidden nuts and chasing each other. It’s amazing to see how they adapt to their environment and find ways to survive even in harsh conditions. Their ability to hide and remember the location of their food caches is truly remarkable.
Red squirrels are adorable and so playful! I could watch them for hours, hiding hazelnuts and walnuts and then digging them up later, or chasing each other up and down the old oak in the backyard.
I hope you enjoyed these photos, and no worries, there will be more fluffy koalas, cute kangaroos, and adorable red squirrels featured here soon!
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The Hidden Scorecard Inside All of Us
I’m always wary of miracle shortcuts, quick fixes, and no sweat-solutions. The human brain is a sucker for them, and I’ve learned the hard way to avoid them. There are no such things as a free lunch.
So, when Jim Loehr, the American performance psychologist and author, told Tim Ferriss (in this podcast) about a simple exercise that has profoundly changed the lives of thousands of people, I was, you know, wary. What, write down eight words, and then another eight words? That’s it? What could possibly be that mind-blowing?
Well, it turned out he was right. How world-shattering it depends very much on who you are and how you live your life.
The Exercise
1) Think about who you are when you are the most proud of yourself, when you are at your very best. Especially in stressful circumstances, when you faced considerable challenges and somehow managed to overcome them and be the best you could be.
Write down the six to eight words that would best describe you at those moments. Take five minutes to reflect on them.
Please stop here and do this, it takes only five minutes.
*
Done? Read on.
What Loehr learned through this first step of the exercise: most people come up with almost the same things. And these are not the things people chase, like making a lot of money, closing a huge deal, or winning titles. Instead, they talk about being kind, compassionate, fully engaged with others, and so on. So more moral and ethical things rather than material or external success.
2) Now write down six to eight words that you would like inscribed on your tombstone. These words would actually reflect who you truly were, representing who you were when you were here. What would you like inscribed most importantly in the highest priority on your tombstone?
Again, take five minutes to reflect on them.
*
Ready? Read on.
What Loehr learned through this step of the exercise: the list was almost identical for all people participating in his workshops.
People would write things like “loving father”, “loyal friend”, or “an optimist”. No one would write, “I made CEO of a Fortune 500 company” or “I won this title and this title”.
What they were actually referencing was the connection to other people. This is how they wanted to be remembered. A person who was kind, loving, and loyal, an optimist who brought joy to others. That was what mattered.
3) Compare who you are at your best and how you want to be remembered when you’re gone.
Very likely, you are right there. The two lists are similar, and they contain few, if any, of the external status markers.
The Hidden Scorecard
We spend our lives chasing extrinsic measures of success, even though we have this hidden scorecard inside of us. We work hard and sacrifice a lot of things and think that we would feel better about ourselves as soon as we’ve closed that deal, bought that house, or made director or VP.
But when we evaluate our life, we use this hidden scorecard that contains none of those things.
This is why focusing on external success measures only (better job, a bigger house, etc.) leaves us unsatisfied and always wanting more. As soon as we reached our goal, as soon as we’ve got that promotion or bought the house, the euphory, and joy of that event vanishes after a short while. We’re feeling no different than before, and we start chasing the next goal, and the next one. It never ends.
Does it mean that we shouldn’t strive towards certain goals in life, like finding a better job or a nice house? Not at all.
We should work both scorecards; become aware of the hidden scorecard, and ensure that we’re living a life with intention and aligned to those moral and ethical values. This brings a more lasting feeling of peace and contentment.
Even if we encounter setbacks and failures in reaching our external goals, living a life aligned with our values will help us get through those moments. It puts things in perspective.
How much would this customer who ruined your day or the boss who didn’t think you deserved a promotion matter in 20, 30, or 40 years? When you look back on your life, what would matter?
Becoming a CEO, winning the “Sales Rep of the Year” three years in a row, always having the latest car model or iPhone? Or the time spent with your family and your friends, the quality of those relationships, the joy of spending time with like-minded people sharing the same hobby, the rewarding hard work on your charity?
Focusing too much on the external scorecard and ignoring the internal one can have dire consequences. Getting alienated from family and friends, for instance, or depression.
Evaluating Your Life
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who worked in palliative care, wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Tending to dying people, she noted that the things people regretted when looking back at their lives were those found in that hidden scorecard. They didn’t regret that they didn’t work harder or made more money, or that they didn’t make CEOs.
These were the top five regrets people had.
- Regret 1: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- Regret 2: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- Regret 3: I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- Regret 4: I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.
- Regret 5: I wish I had let myself be happier.
This may sound morbid, but since we’ve already tackled the tombstone … if you knew that you only had a short time to live, what would you do? What would your priorities be? Would you work harder and longer to attain your goal (become CEO!) or spend time with your family?
Deadlines have that quality of putting everything in sharp focus and clarifying priorities. Death is the ultimate deadline.
Conclusion
Allowing time for reflection and putting things into perspective is self-care. Give this exercise a try. Congratulations if you live your values and gain nothing from this exercise but confirmation that you’re on the right track! But if you’re not, you have so much to gain!
Good luck!
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Flowers on World Poetry Day
What better way to celebrate World Poetry Day today than by writing or reading a poem? The rain doesn’t seem to let up here, but this doesn’t mean you can’t use it in a poem as I did 😉. Happy World Poetry Day!
Spring rain
Caressing
The whispering flowers
To read more poetry, click here.
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Why Do I Write?
Why do I write? How could I not? I write so I know that I exist. Brief as my moment in this world may be, it’s mine and mine alone; all mine to cherish and to honor. All mine to examine, make sense of, and preserve in the amber drop of memory.
I write to remember the honey light in Marrakech on a late afternoon in March, the blue of the sky vibrating with the muezzin calls and the racket of the sparrows playing in the palm trees in the Majorelle Garden. The gorgeous backdrop of the Atlas Mountains and the aroma of the spices in the souk. The rich hot black coffee in the tiny café on a side street off Jemâa el-Fna Square. The toothless smile of the old water seller under the colorful hat embellished with bright orange fringes. I remember he had a bushy mustache and an air of resigned patience on his heavily lined face as tourists snapped their photos. At least he’s getting paid, I thought.
I write to remember Delhi and the heavy scent of burning incense that hit me while the plane was landing, the beaming faces greeting me in the terminal, friends I hadn’t met yet. Delirious and unfamiliar Delhi, my senses assaulted by its cacophony of novel sounds, colors, and smells; the reddish-brown cow nibbling on a sapling at the side of the road, another moving placidly in the chaotic traffic. Horn, please! said the stickers on the bumper, explaining part of the racket. The delicious food at a vegetarian restaurant I found wandering by myself in the glowing twilight.
And everywhere you looked, people. People walking in line along the dusty roads, carrying bundles of vegetables or a collection of empty plastic water bottles; bales of cotton in all the rainbow’s colors; armloads of marigolds, their leaves strikingly green against the deep orange of the petals. People riding bicycles or rickshaws, carrying saddlebags, floor sacks, suitcases, packets tied with brown hemp strings, and age-worn backpacks. People drinking tea on the side of the road, gossiping and watching the traffic. Grinning people dressed in flowing white robes. Dark-eyed women with red dots on their foreheads and wide-eyed toddlers clutching tightly at their bright orange, green or yellow saris.
I write to remember Kyoto’s old streets, lined with tiny wooden houses clinging to the low hills, miniature flowerpots and plastic water bottles aligned like soldiers at the gates; the gray stone foxes at the Fushimi Inari shrine, messengers of Inari, the Shinto god of rice, red neckerchiefs fluttering in the cool wind around their necks; the fiercely red-orange of the torii gates matching the foxes’ kerchiefs.
I write to remember the dusty red tracks on Kangaroo Island, lined with giant eucalyptus trees; the incongruous rough calls of the fluffy koalas at dusk, mixed with the hubbub of the parakeets and galahs; the boxing kangaroos at sunset, their darkening silhouettes visible against the fiery sky; and the soft leathery sounds made by the flying foxes in the dark.
But faraway places aren’t the only stops of my memory train. There’s a democracy in my head; everybody can climb on board. Five-star resorts and exotic islands; dusty tracks and fly-ridden donkeys; water-sellers and university professors; squirrels and the Queen of England; the first time I rode a bicycle; the summer I injured my knee; the downpour in the mountains that almost washed our tent away; the vanilla and coffee ice-cream I so enjoyed on summer afternoons; the surgery I had in 2014. It’s all there in the attic in a jumble that only writing can bring order to.
I write to freeze in time the moment I saw my name on the list of people admitted to the university, standing on my toes in a crowded room.
I write because otherwise, nobody else will know about Fluffy, the one-eyed red squirrel raiding the bird feeders in my backyard, her remaining huge alien eye glittering with mischief.
I write because the world has a right to know that Terry, the male squirrel with the dark fluffy coat, does not like peanuts. He prefers sunflower seeds.
This is why I write. How could I not?
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Favorite Photos: February 2023
February’s photos are all from Australia this month, too. Let me start with the cutest one, a young Kangaroo Island kangaroo female (Macropus fuliginosus fuliginosus) that used to come with her mother by our villa almost every day. She’s so cute 😍 I probably took hundreds of photos of her!
A short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), also known as the spiny anteater, very busy foraging for ants. Echidna uses its snout and powerful claws to dig up ants or termites and then scoops them out with its long sticky tongue. It moves incredibly fast, and most of my echidna photos are of its butt, ha, ha!
Endemic to southern Australia, the hooded plover is deemed a vulnerable species due to predation by dogs, cats, silver gulls, and human disturbances. Introduced foxes are also dangerous in other parts of southern Australia, but luckily, there are no foxes on Kangaroo Island. The hooded plover population is estimated at 3.000 and declining.
Hooded plovers (Thinornis cucullatus) feed on insects and other invertebrates found in the wet sand.
I found this cute little fellow during our usual late afternoon walks around our accommodations at Ecopia Retreat. The villa is tucked away in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary, so it was a pretty safe bet we’d encounter some animals and birds in their natural habitat. He posed nicely for a few photos but went to sleep afterward (something koalas do for about 20 hours a day).
Did you know that the white-backed Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), also called piping shrike, appears on the South Australia state flag and badge? They’re everywhere and, in contrast to their European counterparts, have a melodious song.
I hope you enjoyed these photos, and no worries, there will be more fluffy koalas and cute kangaroos featured here soon!
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Happy Valentine’s Day
Love comes in all shapes and sizes 
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Reading Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius
I’ve started reading Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius, the complete collection translated by Richard M. Gummere; the dog-eared paperback edition I had read and re-read earlier was only a selection of forty letters out of the 124 he wrote.
Seneca has always fascinated me (and many others), writing so eloquently about how to live a good life, only concerned with your character, etc. – only to live his life quite differently. Many brand him a hypocrite, but I think he was merely human, struggling like all of us. I think he tried. Behind the scenes, he managed the empire during the first years of Nero‘s reign, an uninterested Nero happily leaving him to it, and he did a pretty good job together with Burrus. One wonders how things would have gone with him as a ruler. Would he have become a philosopher emperor or given in to his less, shall I say, flattering sides? We’ll never know.
It’s hard to imagine the insecurity of life at court, especially at Nero’s. Assassinations, even of close family members (Nero had his mother put to death, for example, and he’s also suspected of murdering his wife), executions or orders for suicide, and exile were an everyday business. Seneca could see Nero sinking into madness a little more every day, fearing he’d be next. He was almost ordered to commit suicide by Caligula and escaped it only because Caligula thought he was dying (of tuberculosis); later, he also spent eight years in exile in Corsica under Claudius. Maybe he thought power and riches would protect him from the whims of the capricious rulers. But those would only threaten or become the envy of an emperor.
He was forced to retire eventually, and curiously enough, Nero let him go after refusing him twice before. He left his riches to Nero, retired to the country, read philosophy, and wrote these letters, among other works. Unfortunately, it didn’t save him in the end. Accused of being involved in a plot to assassinate Nero, he was forced to take his own life.
The Letters may be his attempt to be stoic about his fate (pun intended). He had no riches or power anymore, but a Stoic wouldn’t need them. Or maybe the distance from the court provided the perspective he needed. It certainly made it easier for him to live a little closer to his Stoic ideals.
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