Learning Perspective

Last night I got home from work, went jogging, showered, grocery shopped for a weekend getaway, wrote an entire song from scratch with guitar, cut a rough together for the guy I work on music with, and constructed a complete mock for the outside of our invitations. And then I got into bed, at midnight, feeling like I'd gotten nothing done.

Perspective is a tricky little bitch, and I feel like I'm just beginning to claw some out of myself. If I could find and keep perspective in my emotional toolbox, then maybe I'd be less critical of myself. And maybe you'd be less critical of you, too.

When I'm in day to day living I fall into some majorly negative habits. This last year of my life, while not on the formal goals list, has been an attack on those bad habits. First, finding and defining them. And then slowly (oh so slowly) working on them.

It took me 28 years in, who knows how long it'll take me to get rid of them. Maybe, like alcoholism, you're always in recovery but never cured.

But back to perspective. I have short term goals written across every wall, notebook and post it note. And I have some vague plans on how to reach them ("Stop watching Hulu," for example.) But I realize quickly that all of them take longer than I think they should or require particularly specific timing. (I shouldn't use my sewing machine after 10 due to noise for the lower neighbors, another example.) And I begin to forget that tiny progress is still progress. I jump to being frustrated that I'm not a maestro or can't, you know, plan and prepare an entire wedding in a fortnight.

So goal setting is like changing habits:
1. Figure out goal
2. Figure out path to goal.

But then there is a third part that includes the perspective:
3. When you *feel* like you're not making progress, know that you are making progress... simply by the fact that you are doing anything on the path at all. Perspective allows you to see the path and where you are on it w/o being bogged down by trivial details. W/o perspective we forget that goals aren't products, they are a process. A night of terrible drawing gets you closer to being an artist than a night of no drawing at all. Perspective knows that when sometimes my heart does not.

Last night when I hopped in bed I said, "I feel like I haven't gotten anything done." And in my mind I had this flash of my list, and I was picturing the inside of the invites I still haven't touched or the fact that I haven't emailed actors about the short yet. I wasn't visualizing the music waiting in Paul's inbox or the fact that I had a breakthrough idea on the invitation exteriors. But b/c in that instant I became aware of where I was looking, I switched my view. I changed the focus. And I went to sleep feeling like I'd gotten a lot done.