I am writing this post because of a few recent minor events which happened to me and to my blogging efforts. One thing that happened was one of my older posts was re-sent to subscribers to this blog. So readers received the same thing twice. The next thing that happened was my most recent post vanished from my list of published blog posts. So, I had two weird events happen back-to-back. I also had no idea what to do about either situation.
Then I noticed a few of my old familiar patterns coming back in full force:
- I turned inward to obsess over what to do even though I really had no idea what to do
- I felt badly for inconveniencing other people (my readers) and felt the need to apologize without knowing the “best way” to do so
- I avoided apologizing
- I felt afraid of making a “next move” for fear of re-sending to readers the post that had vanished if I tried to put it back up on my website
- I did not turn to any people who might know the answer to my problems
- I lost valuable time (including treasured vacation time) thinking in circles about these issues
I realized somewhere midway through my obsessional thinking that I was getting myself nowhere and making myself a little bit nuts. But I also could not drop the idea that this experience could be made into a meaningful blog post. The inability to act, the self-criticism, and the crazy-making all felt too much like mini-dysfunctional pieces of Procrastination.
I’ve come to a few conclusions about this mixed-up experience which I wanted to share with you:
- it’s a good idea to bring thorny issues to resolution
- there will be questionable and curious events that will happen when you embark on new complex experiences, like blogging
- you can choose to move past circular thinking just by choosing to do so
- you can let things go
- you can let people know about your mistakes and how you feel about them
- you can move forward either on your own or with the help of others
And here’s an extra bonus lesson I learned:
- Don’t try to make up for past mistakes on vacation time. It’s effectively a double waste of your time as we human beings are not supposed to work while on vacation.
This post is my way of saying goodbye to my conundrum of not knowing what to do to resolve the two issues with my posts. I have some reasonable assumptions now about what may have happened. I’ve also begun to take some steps to make sure random transmissions of my blog posts no longer happen. (I am very sorry that some of you received the duplicate post.) I also know I want to give the things just ahead of me my full attention. So, I'm going to move on, and feel better.
Thanks for reading along here. If you happen to notice your own mind going in circles, either now or at some later date, I hope you’ll be able to extract yourself too. Decide to clear your mind and allow yourself to move forward again.
