Yesterday, I didn’t write on my blog. It was almost bedtime before I decided whether I’d be skipping a day, and I did.
We had a hot, busy day. Eric is building a retaining wall with attached stairs, and his brother and his fiancee came to help. We had lunch all together, then I cleaned the garage out. By the time I’d made dinner, gotten kids through showers, and done bedtime reading and prayers, I was beat.
But as I headed for my bedroom, instead of my office to write a quick, cheap blog post just to say I’d done it, I wondered whether it would bother me. Because for most of my life, it totally would have.
I’ve expended a lot of energy over the years beating myself up for tiny mistakes. I’ve kicked myself endlessly for “failures” (real and imagined). I’ve lost a lot of sleep over whether I should have done something different or whether someone thought less of me because of something I did, or didn’t do. And here I was, skipping a day on my personal challenge. In my world, that’s a failure if there ever was one.
So would I over-react or guilt myself or lose sleep?
Nope. Not this time.
A Better Way
I am finally learning that there is a lot more to life than the letter of the law. There’s so many better things to focus on than what “they” think of me (and let’s be honest, I can’t control what anybody thinks about anything, most especially me).
This challenge is about diligence. Writing on my blog is one of two things I’m trying to do every day this month to rebuild habits I’ve let slide (the other is flossing my teeth, if you were wondering). It’s not about pleasing anyone else. It’s not about earning love. It’s about diligence alone.
So skipping a day really isn’t a big deal. Not this time. I can still write most days of the month and re-establish the writing habit I’ve slacked on for a while. It’s not a checklist thing. And you don’t have to like me more, no matter how many times I write on my blog this month.
Of course, I still intend to write every day for the rest of the month. Or maybe I’ll give myself one more day off in the second half of the month. Either way, I’ll be making progress toward being a better version of myself. And that is a lovely thing.
Even if it means occasionally skipping a day.
