Don't Rush the Process

 It was Sunday night, nearing dinnertime, when I looked at the clock and realized with a start that I had not written this week's blog yet.  It is unusual for me to have nothing in the hopper by this point in the week, and mild panic began to set in.  What if this is the week when I have nothing to write?  What if this is the start of the end for my blog?  What would it mean if I missed a week?  

Usually, I have a thought or a spark of an idea that lands with me sometime during the week, and over time, it morphs into the posts I put on my site each Monday.  Often, these are quite organic in nature and are born from conversations and experiences that I have had in the days prior.  Not this week.  As I took a moment to reflect on ideas and thoughts I could craft into a post, the silence was deafening.  Crickets.  Tumbleweeds.  Ticking clock sounds.

I started to do what felt natural, I tried to force ideas forward, thinking about themes or topics that I've touched on before, but could maybe expand on differently...none of that felt right.  As I continued to cycle through ideas, rejecting them almost as quickly as they arose, I had a thought come to mind:

"Don't rush the process."

Huh.  Tell me more.  I sat with that for a moment and realized that it was exactly what I'd been trying to do.  My posts come together when I least expect them to, often from a free-flow of ideas and feelings.  What I had been trying to do was the complete opposite, and as I quickly learned, was not required.

For someone like me, goals, objectives, and desires are things that I often get excited by.  I love nothing more than setting an audacious goal for myself and then proceeding to work towards it.  My excitement breeds enthusiasm, and living up to my nickname of Keener Kerri (2K), I jump in with both feet in hot pursuit of said dream.  Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to burnout, resentment, and hollow victories as the reason behind the goal is lost in the frenzy to get there.  

Rushing the process may feel like the best way to get something done, but in the doing, it diminishes the journey.  Instead of relishing soft victories, the unrelenting push to the finish line is all we see.  Our incremental progress and unwavering dedication are lost in the shuffle of fast feet and moving targets.  Ultimately, we may achieve what we set out to do, but do we really feel the depth of achievement we hoped for?  In my case, the answer is often no.  I'm too busy thinking about how to make the next time better, or different, or more meaningful, when the magic I'm looking for lies in the process itself.  So I am going to give thanks to this momentary writer's block and to the wisdom it brought forward once I was willing to take my foot off the accelerator and stop rushing.





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