When I checked my email this afternoon, I read the subject line of the first message in my inbox.
The way I read it, it said "How IS the project coming?"
This was like a punch in the gut. Read it out loud with the emphasis, and you might know what I mean.
I now know that it actually says "How is the IS project coming?" This is an entirely different sort of question, carrying much less of a guilt trip. But you'll understand why I read it the way I did as you continue reading.
When I read that subject line, my face got how and I simultaneously wanted to cry, climb in bed and go to sleep, and go for a run. The tears would have been from shame. The desire to sleep came from the opportunity it would give to escape from reality. And I only want to run when I have something to run from. Fight or flight response. When I'm confronted with something that requires me to admit my shortcomings, I choose flight every time.
The project is not going well. The semester is not going well. I am in a pit that I dug for myself, and it's easier to just stay down here than to try to climb out. This, of course, is not the response that anyone wants from me. I've been squandering my potential my whole life, and I've said more times that I care to count that "it's time to do things differently."
Well, at the end of my time in undergraduate studies, I'd better figure out how to stick to that statement.
If this project is about lessons in doing a great work, I'm going to treat this project as a great work.
In the editing that I did this evening, after feeling terrible all afternoon, I learned that it fits many of the criteria for a great work.
If you want to know more about these criteria, you can read the book on your Kindle when it's published in May.
The manuscript is now two-thirds finished (as far as I'm concerned).
I'm further behind in my reading that I care to acknowledge (this is true of most of my classes at the moment).
And this is only the third of the ten posts I committed to writing.
The project, from now on, will get better.
My edits of the manuscript I have will be finished by Saturday. Dad, I'll give you the binder at lunch.
My reading will be done within two weeks.
I'll be writing multiple posts each week.
This will get done. I will finish well.
I have made mistakes, but I am not a failure. I refuse to defeat myself.
That's how the project is going.
The way I read it, it said "How IS the project coming?"
This was like a punch in the gut. Read it out loud with the emphasis, and you might know what I mean.
I now know that it actually says "How is the IS project coming?" This is an entirely different sort of question, carrying much less of a guilt trip. But you'll understand why I read it the way I did as you continue reading.
When I read that subject line, my face got how and I simultaneously wanted to cry, climb in bed and go to sleep, and go for a run. The tears would have been from shame. The desire to sleep came from the opportunity it would give to escape from reality. And I only want to run when I have something to run from. Fight or flight response. When I'm confronted with something that requires me to admit my shortcomings, I choose flight every time.
The project is not going well. The semester is not going well. I am in a pit that I dug for myself, and it's easier to just stay down here than to try to climb out. This, of course, is not the response that anyone wants from me. I've been squandering my potential my whole life, and I've said more times that I care to count that "it's time to do things differently."
Well, at the end of my time in undergraduate studies, I'd better figure out how to stick to that statement.
If this project is about lessons in doing a great work, I'm going to treat this project as a great work.
In the editing that I did this evening, after feeling terrible all afternoon, I learned that it fits many of the criteria for a great work.
If you want to know more about these criteria, you can read the book on your Kindle when it's published in May.
The manuscript is now two-thirds finished (as far as I'm concerned).
I'm further behind in my reading that I care to acknowledge (this is true of most of my classes at the moment).
And this is only the third of the ten posts I committed to writing.
The project, from now on, will get better.
My edits of the manuscript I have will be finished by Saturday. Dad, I'll give you the binder at lunch.
My reading will be done within two weeks.
I'll be writing multiple posts each week.
This will get done. I will finish well.
I have made mistakes, but I am not a failure. I refuse to defeat myself.
That's how the project is going.
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