Part of my Sunday routine is to spend a couple of hours writing. It is sacred time for me to reflect on the past week and it gives me time to really center myself for the week ahead. Normally, I am able to get thoughts written down fairly easy after a walk or hearing a church sermon, but lately, I have encountered a case of writer's block and I am finding myself lost. This feeling is certainly not due to lack of material because I am always able to talk about a variety of subjects, but rather, it is a sense that what I want to write about may miss the mark of what I am trying to convey or is just recycled material from previous things I've written about. It is a terrible feeling because there is a great sense of inadequacy that accompanies this feeling and avoidance typically follows with the hope that something will eventually come to mind. Well, nothing is coming to mind and here I am writing about it and becoming increasingly frustrated with the fact that I am lost and there doesn't appear to be a way out of this mental fog that I am in.
To be honest, this fog has plagued me all year. You can only read and write about forgiveness, grace, resiliency, and hope so many times before they become cliche and lose all meaning. In the COVID pandemic education experience, this is only amplified by educational leaders like myself who deliver a healthy dose of them on a consistent and ongoing basis to the point that people begin having an adverse reaction to them. It's like trying to find a way out of the woods you find yourself in and around every turn, there is a bear trap ready to clamp your ankle and leave you incapacitated until you just give up altogether. That is the level of my brain fog right now and I share that with you not for sympathy, but rather, to let you know that in spite of my general positive outlook on things, I'm right there with you when it comes to being exhausted and frustrated with no general direction on how to move forward. There is, however, a way out.
Happiness and having a positive outlook are two different things. I am a positive person who looks to find bright spots even though circumstances might be dire, but this doesn't mean that I am always happy. What it does mean is that I have a higher probability of finding happiness if I take a positive outlook instead of having a negative outlook. Keeping this in mind, although I am lost right now, I am positive I will find a way out of this mental fog I am in by pushing forward. It certainly sucks that I have no idea where I am going and I might encounter a few traps along the way, but I will make it through this and the fog will lift and allow me to see at some point. What I won't do is throw my hands up in the air and give up because I am frustrated and angry at the moment that words are not coming to me. I also won't project my feelings on others because my lack of direction or feelings of being lost don't need to be owned by others who may be going through their own issues right now. What I will do is continue tapping away on my laptop with the mindset of "seek and you shall find." I just might be tapping a little harder on the keyboard than I normally do to see if I can will myself into finding a topic to write about. Oh wait. I guess I just did.
#ONWARD #FORGE
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