This morning I find myself disappointed with myself. I spend so much time trying to bridge the gap between who I am who I would like to be, yet so often the bridge I build is structurally unsound. I find that rather than focusing on my projects, I focus on whether or not I am engaging the projects properly. By properly I mean “in accordance with my expectations.”

Given that my expectations are consistently lofty it isn’t uncommon for me to feel the stress of not living up to myself. I don’t fully understand why I turn every little endeavour into a life-or-death struggle between greatness and mediocrity, but the fact that I do is problematic. I don’t know how I will ever do the things I want to do-write books, undertake innovative projects, etc-unless I get over this constant need to turn everything into something amazing. Not that I am misguided in my longing for greatness; rather, I am misguided in how I go about pursuing greatness. I have to learn to relax more, enjoy the process more, be more confident, and so on.

But the particular cause of my disappointment this morning is the fact that lately I have been negative-and I hate that.  I hate hearing myself complain that projects aren’t going as I would have hoped, that plans for the Winter and next semester are up in the air; in short, I hate hearing myself filled with negativity and not joy and delight.

So I’m making a little vow to work to only exude that which I want to exude-kindness, happiness and light.  I also intend to relax, enjoy everything that unfolds around me, and trust that the work I produce will be up to my standards.  I think my biggest problem is that I get so excited, and feel and see so many connections between things, that I strive to write them down instantly and all in one fell swoop-before I have had time to flesh out and think through my new ideas.  It’s hard for me to imagine a two-year writing process, seeing as my usual method is to write in bursts of passion before I forget, or get nervous about forgetting, the feelings that inspired the writing in the first place.