Picking Up Where I Left Off...

It is Sunday evening. I should be finishing up some accounting work I could not force myself to finish on Saturday. But here I am blogging. Lack of discipline, you say. Hardly! As a matter of fact, I am starting up once again to post to my personal blog.

Recently I started a business oriented blog, The 610 Business Journal. But that is about work and working. And writing the articles and putting it together is just a part of my Monday to Friday routine. It is professional work, just as marketing activities and doing accounting is work.

Having rediscovered all the work I did here in this blog, I was reminded of what an amazing experience it was to lose myself in creating a new entry. Being a writer is a somewhat strange pursuit. When I start writing a piece, something fictional or a piece about real world things, I never know where the words pouring out of my head are going to take me. I never know when I will stumble on a truth about life or the world which will suddenly appear in the text box. Just as your life and my life is a journey, so is the process of writing a piece of literature, big or small. When I am writing, all sense of time seems to disappear and without realizing it an hour or two will have flown by me, without my realizing it.

You see, when I am writing, no matter the format or the subject, I am looking for understanding. Understanding how people work. Understanding how the world works. Understanding how we allow our lives to go horribly wrong or how we find our way back from losing our way. I am trying to understand the journey of my life. I am trying to come to terms with who and what I am and to make peace with myself. And most importantly, because one thing I can do well is communicate using the written word, to make a small difference in the world. So writing, for me, is a critically important activity. When I am writing, it is a time and a place when I can escape from the world and practice some productive introspection.

We are advised by those in the financial know to pay ourselves first and then pay the people to whom we owe money next. When it comes to money and time, the two commodities are not all that different. For most of us, there are never enough hours in the day nor enough dollars (or pounds or euros or yen) to allow us to live our lives exactly as we would like to. We have "x" dollars in the bank and 24 hours in a day. That's it. No more. No less.

So may I modestly suggest that when it comes to time, we should also pay ourselves first. Okay, you say. But how do we do that? It is really very simple.

Start out with the assumption that you enjoy doing certain things immensely, that have little to do with work or family. Define for yourself that certain something you enjoy doing. For me it is making time to write every day. It could be reading. It could be writing a blog posting as I am doing right now. It could be hitting balls at a driving range. Is can be anything you choose it to be.

Next, when you arrange your schedule for the next day, set aside just 30 minutes or an hour. Set it aside to be your time to indulge yourself in that pursuit. Don't feel guilty for doing so. After having set aside that time, don't give the matter any additional thought. The next day, use that scheduled time to do whatever floats your psychological boat. You will feel so much better... you will recharge your batteries and feel hugely refreshed. Use every allotted second of time for it is your time. After you have, return to the world and do what you have to do to get through the remainder of the day.

I am paying myself first tonight. It really feels tremendously good to be writing to you now. It won't put any money in the bank. But it will make this day a livable one. For each of us, there will be some days which are painful or challenging. For even those days, allowing ourselves this privilege of doing our thing every day, will enable us to survive even the worst that life can throw at us. This strategy certainly works for me.

Understand that setting aside this brief bit of time for ourselves has got to be something that we consciously choose to do. It is a critical decision we make in our life. I do it to keep my sanity and to create an opportunity to find purpose and grace in my life. You can do it for any reason that seems reasonable to you.

So I am back writing new pieces for Inside My World... Don't be a stranger. You don't have to like everything that I write. But occasionally you will find a piece that resonates with you. So come on back, y'all, from time to time.

Kindest regards,

Howard Fireman
Houston, Texas