Sunday, April 5, 2015

A to Z Challenge: Doing What I Can With What I Have

I didn't forget that I was supposed to post yesterday. Nor did I decide to just not post. Nor did I give up.

The truth is, I spent pretty much all day yesterday trying to get into blogger so that I can write my posts (yeah, I write them on the day). But alas, I was stuck without an internet connection until about an hour ago. 

So here I am, hoping that my connection doesn't fail me again before I get to post. 

It's fitting, though, because it corresponds with D-Day's lesson that I've learned from 2014.



As 2014 went on and more things kept going wrong, it was almost too easy to focus on what I didn't have than what I did have or was capable of doing. 

Luckily for me, though, I remembered this one thing that I've always believed in. 

No matter what, there's always something that we can do. No, the circumstances might not be ideal or there might be about a million things that might be beyond my reach. 

But there's always something within my reach and I can use that to the best of my ability. 

So when things were absolutely bleak and I had almost nothing else left, I turned back to my writing after almost a year of writing very little. You'd think that in those circumstances, I'd get very little writing done. 

You'd be wrong. 

I wrote 60k words in December alone. And I've been averaging 25k per month ever since. (Even though my return to internet and business means I have less writing time.) 

But that, my friends, is amateurish stuff. This guy's a master: 



Needless to say, yesterday, I was tempted to be annoyed when my internet connection went. But you know what? I'm blessed to have it on whichever days I do have it working. On other days, I'm just going to mess around with my shiny new ideas and add some words to my older ones. Because that I can do without being connected to the internet.

Do you have a fall-back when everything else goes wrong? Want to tell us about it? 


4 comments:

betty said...

That can be frustrating without an internet connection, but I like your attitude about it. We do get so wrapped up with internet, sometimes its not to have it down for a bit to remember life without it :)

I hope you have a wonderful Easter!

betty

Tanya Miranda said...

I agree. There is always something to do. When the internet is down in my house, and I needed to do something online and now I can't, I do one of the billion other things I'm not doing because I'm writing or doing "writerly" things. Like cleaning, laundry, food shopping, running, or maybe finally pulling the weeds out of my garden. And if all else fails, reading a good book or watching a good movie always seems to fill the void. There's always something.

Jolie du Pre said...

I watched that entire video and I'm going to share it on my Facebook page. Here's a guy with severe cerebral palsy who instead of feeling sorry for himself uses his gift to create beautiful art in an amazing way. He has a sunny disposition, and everyone likes him. We can all learn from Paul. ~~~~ Yes, it's annoying when our Internet goes down, but be thankful that you have Internet at all. Be thankful that you can type with both of your fingers. Be thankful that you don't have cerebral palsy. Be thankful.

Precious Monsters

Misha Gerrick said...

Betty it's true. Sometimes, being without internet feels like an amputation, but it's only ever really that bad.

Tanya, I do that too. And the funny thing is that I often find those things restful to do, even though I've been avoiding them for ages.

He is inspiring. Thanks for sharing the vid, Jolie.