Baby Steps

I love my housemate. He’s a terrific listener and offers marvelous insights. In college, he was a member of the cross country team and has maintained his conditioning. This commitment taught him a lot, it seems, and I’m now the beneficiary of a big pearl of wisdom.

He and I were talking about this mutual acquaintance of ours, and I mentioned how she talked about working out. He was a little surprised, and said, I didn’t think that her body looked like the type of a person who makes working out a regular part of her life. He said that he can tell by looking at a person how committed he/she is to working out. He said, for a lot of people, they work out for a little while, super hard core for a couple of weeks, and then they flame out. I jumped the gun and correctly guessed that he could tell that I was such a person.

I was fascinated by this concept because it seemed to speak to a larger issue in my life… the inability to completely follow through on personal improvement plans. This whole three days’ focus series is a way for me to be focused on being productive. To this point, I’ve had success with the three days’ focus series because it has ensured that I, at the very least, start projects. I find this to be an effective method, especially for little projects that can be completed, largely, in three days’ time. However…

The last three days’ focus project was to focus on playing the piano. I’d said that I wanted to achieve 15 hours of practice time towards that magical 10,000-hour target which, when achieved, would probably put me at the level of piano mastery (note that I’m not saying virtuosity). In looking at my progress, I tabulated 2 hours and 15 minutes. Now, if I took the measurements and compared them to my goal, surely I would consider this last project a failure. But, I don’t, and it’s because of my conversation with my housemate.

You see, in that discussion, Housemate mentioned that, to really make something a part of your life, you want to start out small and simply commit to it. I played piano on each of the three days. If I make the piano playing a daily thing, then, perhaps, some days, I’ll practice much more than 25 or 50 minutes. If I tabulate those times, perhaps by the end of the year I’ll be close to 1,000 hours. Perhaps, in coming years, I’ll commit even more and reach 10,000 hours after 5 or 6 years. At that time, I’ll still be in my early thirties, and have the rest of my life to let the keys help me to go wherever I want to go!

In speaking of going wherever I want to go, today I started a new three days’ focus project. The reader may recall that one of my earlier entries was “Clutter Confrontation,” in which I described my attempts to de-clutter my bedroom, making it more livable. I made moderate progress at the time, and now I’m going whole hog. I’ve hauled 98% of the boxes of junk out of my bedroom and started asking myself questions like “What can I do with this?” “Is there somewhere in my house that this can belong?” I feel that working on this project and organizing the junque (misspelling intentional. Junque refers to junk that isn’t worthless… it’s just in the way) will enable me to move about the world more freely. I have no plans to settle permanently in Salina, and, when I do move, I want my move to be relatively stress-free, and having control over my possessions will make that much more likely. So, for today, tomorrow, and the next day, I’m doing battle with my past that I might have a more stress free future. ¡Olé!