A broken streak just needs some gold added

Well, so as soon as I started working on a system to make writing a daily post easier, I found a flaw in my system. The short version is that there were some minor computer problems and I was exhausted, so I spent a few minutes trying to fix things and then just went to bed.

And while that was definitely annoying, it did give me both strength and beauty in my mind. I realized that I need a more robust system, which I haven’t clearly figured out yet, but that’s ok. It’s something I can continue working on. And, now I have no doubt that some element of life will eventually show me a flaw in whatever system I create in order to meet this goal.

So, the more I’ve thought about it, the more it makes sense to simply abandon this goal.

What? Giving up? Quitting after only a week?

Yep.

It’s no longer a goal.

Now it is a practice.

I have had many different types of practices throughout my life. Some have been more successful than others, but practices are different from goals.

I’ll give an example.

For many years, playing guitar was really important to me. Playing it well was really important to me. I developed a system involving exercises that I developed and that I saw other guitarists use, and for several years, spent about an hour a day just doing these exercises before doing any playing at all. And it worked really well. And I did it every single day.

Well, almost every single day.

There were days that were genuinely too busy, although those were relatively rare. There were days where enough things went wrong that I simply didn’t have the patience or mental energy or discipline to sit down and practice for that long. And there were days that were so amazing and so fun and so wonderful that it never occurred to me to stop what I was doing to make sure my practice got done.

And I never had a very specific, long term goal, like play every single day for a year, or five years, or anything like that. I just had the practice of playing (almost) every single day for several years.

I enjoyed the hell out of doing so most of the time, and got quite a bit better in the process.

So, rather than a goal of writing and publishing a post every single day, I am establishing a practice of doing so.

Undoubtedly, there will be days where something relatively little and dumb interferes in a time consuming way, or something pretty bad happens, or something pretty wonderful happens, and I just might not make the time to write a new post. And I might not have any already written and ready to post, although I do plan to start doing that.

And so, if I miss a day, nothing that is actually bad is very likely to happen as a result. Although, dear reader, it might make you sad. If so, I do apologize.

I do have an idea in mind that might help take some sadness away, but I want to dwell on it for a few days before I talk about it.

I hope that you have enjoyed your weekend, dear reader, and that you enjoy the upcoming week as well.