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Jay Posey

Archives for January 2013

Renting vs. Owning

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So there’s this thing about things.  Some things you can choose to rent or you can choose to own.  Things like cars, or apartments or houses, or tuxedos.  But usually not so much the toothbrushes or underpants.

Not so much.

Usually.

<shudder>

Renters typically put what they consider to be “reasonable” effort into maintaining the thing they’re renting.  They keep the car kind of full of gas or at least half or at least close to half, and they don’t grind the gears all that much.  They thoughtfully cover their wine spills with furniture.  They rarely do full splits on the dance floor and even if they did one or two they are quite certain the seams were already ripped like that anyway.

Owners, on the other hand, typically go above and beyond to take care of their stuff.  They park three-quarters of a mile away from the mall to avoid door dings.  They put a sheet over great-grandmother Thedalia’s settee and never let anyone sit on it or even look at it or go in the same room as it because IT’S OLDER THAN YOU AND WORTH MORE.  They reinforce the stitching on all the vest buttons because one looks a little wobbly and if you’re reinforcing one button, you might as well do them all.

“Reasonable effort” looks a lot different based on your level of personal investment.

Renters look at things in broad strokes, are content with the 80% (or 72% or 66.67%) result, and have very clear boundaries of what’s their responsibility and what is clearly someone else’s job.  CLEARLY SOMEONE ELSE’S JOB, he says, watching the drip-drip-drip through the ceiling.  He’s a tenant, not a plumber, after all.

Owners sweat the details.  Even with a 100%, they look for ways to get extra credit or to preemptively shore up potential weaknesses.  Everyone’s job is their job, if there’s something that needs to be done.  And while it’s nice for someone to notice and pat an owner on the back, owners will crawl on their bellies through mud and spiderwebs and the most horrifying of specimens (the camel cricket blech) to retrieve the frisbee from under the house not for thanks or credit but because by golly that frisbee is under their jurisdiction and as long as they are in charge NO FRISBEE GETS LEFT BEHIND.

Reasonable?  Depends on who you’re talking to.

So how about you … are you renting your Work, or are you owning it?

 

Uninspired vs. Unmotivated

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So, there’s really only ever one reason to actually Do the Work You Should Be Doing.  It’s, duh, because it’s something you should be doing. And of course there are somewhere between seventy-three and eleventy-seventeen billion reasons not to.  Like, you know, “Darn, this chair is too comfy!” or “Yes, but the remote is all the way over theeeere.”

I frequently find myself sitting on the couch thinking “I really should be doing That Thing” and then I immediately get up and get to work!

And by “immediately get up and get to work”, I mean “continue to sit there and feel guilty about how I’m not working.”

Generally all the Reasons Not To Do The Work fall into two big categories.  Either I feel Uninspired and make excuses, or I feel Unmotivated and make excuses.

Turns out, uninspired is fine.  Most work gets done by people who feel uninspired when they’re doing it. You know, the whole 10% inspiration/90% perspiration thing.  (That’s actually a lie, by the way.  Turns out, empirically-speaking, that inspiration is no more than 3%.)

Continuing to work when you’re Not Feeling Inspired is what we call “being a professional”. You were inspired at one point.  That’s a good sign.  Trust your gut and stick with it, and there’s a very good chance that Inspiration will reappear at some point to give you the jolt you need to carry you through a little farther.  At least until you Feel Uninspired again.

Unmotivated is a different flavor that they don’t serve at Baskin-Robbins but is probably available at Ben & Jerry’s.  Unmotivated frequently comes from a Lost Place, where it’s tough to see how the Work connects to Anything That Matters.  Unmotivated means you’ve lost sight of how what you’re doing right now (or rather That Thing You Should Be Doing Right Now) moves you further towards The <Noun> You Want to Be.

Calling it Unmotivation is sneaky because it makes it sound like it’s merely a lack of something, when in fact Unmotivation is a powerful force of Resistance that must be overcome.  And the way to stomp Unmotivation in its weak ankles is to back away from The Work and dream a little bit about what having accomplished The Work is going to do for you.  Stand in front of a mirror and remind yourself why you started it in the first place.  Sit down and interview yourself as if you’ve already completed The Work.  You know, like:

You: “So, you’re looking pretty amazing today.”

You: “Thanks.  I pretty much look amazing every day.  Also, I am clever.”

You: “I’ve noticed.  Let’s talk about The Work.  How do you feel after winning All the Awards?”

You: “Well, you know, for me, it’s never been about All the Awards.  I’m glad to have them, of course, but really I just wanted to do The Work because <spoilers redacted>”

And so on and so forth.  Dreaming about the end was likely what got you started in the first place. Take a moment to remind yourself about what’s waiting on the other side of Unmotivation, and then while he’s standing over you breathing out of his mouth thinking he’s stumped you for another day, FIST HIS EYEHOLE.

And then get to work.

In summary:

  • Uninspired? Do the work anyway.
  •  Unmotivated? Take a breather, dream a bit. Then do the work anyway.

 

Waiting Until You Feel Like It

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FACT:  Waiting until you Feel Like It is a great way to accomplish about 6% of what you’re capable of.

I know because I did the math.

While I was supposed to be writing.

Quitting What You Start

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The new year is always a great time for new beginnings and fresh starts and promises and resolutions and no-seriously-I’m-really-going-to-finish-that-novel-this-years.

But sometimes what we really need is to quit some things.  And I don’t mean the quit-smoking, quit-drinking, quit-spending-so-much-time-on-the-internet-looking-at-My-Little-Pony-Fan-Art type quitting.  I mean actual, real, honest-to-goodness giving up on things that might be good but just aren’t best.

There’s virtue in persevering, in fighting the good fight and seeing something through to the end, in the ever-present “finish what you start”.  But it’s not a blanket rule to apply to all things.

It’s okay to quit watching that movie you don’t like. It’s okay to stop reading that book that isn’t giving you any meaningful insight, thought, or experience. It’s okay to stop volunteering for all the bake sales where no one buys your not-quite-chewy-not-quite-crunchy “Cajun-style” blackened chocolate chip cookies. It’s okay not to finish that short story or screenplay or novel that seemed so promising right up until you actually started writing it.

If you’ve never finished anything before, it’s worth it to power through and learn what it takes to go from beginning to end.  But if you know you’ve got it in you to Finish, it can be instructive to ask yourself whether or not something is actually worth finishing.

Finishing is critical.  But becoming a Skillful Quitter just might be the thing that clears out all the nonsense so you can focus on the Really Important Work.