I’m really happy with how this week turned out.

Despite not sleeping well for a couple of nights, and despite winking out my hip, I have struck a good balance between work and rest and play.

I did some writing, I made time for creativity, I worked on key projects, and I hung out with friends.

I feel like I should do a close study of what made this week work and try to bring those elements forward into future weeks.

I feel ridiculous writing that because part of my brain wants to argue that I ‘shouldn’t’ need to do that but another part of me reminds me that being conscious of patterns is the only way to live with any satisfaction.

So, since I want to live with satisfaction, I guess paying attention is the only way to go, right?

Three weeks in a row, I have managed to save space for myself on Wednesdays.

I’ve met with a friend and worked on an art project that is just for me.

There’s no deadline, no external pressure.

There isn’t even a complete plan.

The endpoint is clear, but the path isn’t.

And yet I’m walking it for myself, a little while each Wednesday, in my friend’s company.

I can’t even begin to describe how victorious I feel.

Well, it was an experiment, either outcome would have been a success.

Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling great and I wrote about how hard it is to know whether to rest or to push ahead with some work.

I ended up experimenting with working in a low-key manner and I ended up doing a huge chunk of work on a major project and feeling a great sense of accomplishment.

So, yesterday, the answer was that forging ahead would make me feel better.

I reserve the right to experiment with rest next time.

I slept poorly last night.

I wasn’t awake all night. I didn’t feel stressed or anxious. I just didn’t get good quality sleep.

So this morning I felt thick and kind of yucky.

I tried to take a nap, but it didn’t feel restful.

So I was trying to decide whether to just stay in bed and read or to get up and do a few things.

And I always find that really difficult.

I’m not so caught up in the world of productivity that I feel like I must always be doing things.

My worth is not tied to my to do list and I know that rest is a part of life not something you have to earn.

This decision is logistical or functional.

Will I feel better if I lay low or will I feel better if I start doing things?

And there’s no way to tell at the outset.

There’s a real risk with the way my brain works then once I get going on some thing, I’ll just keep going even if it’s not making you feel better, but because I’ve committed to it.

So that makes me reluctant to start.

But I hate the idea that I could be prolonging feeling badly, because I have chosen to just sit there.

This morning I did a workaround by choosing just two tasks to do and to use those as an experiment and that worked out OK.

I do feel better now than I did earlier.

And perhaps, since my solution that I need to experiment (and do a controlled experiment at that) whenever I feel this way.

I wrote a 5 page film script for a 10 day screenwriting challenge and here’s the thing…

I didn’t just go with my first draft.

I did a lot of thinking about it, sifted through some ideas, then wrote a draft.

After that, I let it sit for a few hours and revised it.

Then I corrected the formatting and revised it again.

And I’m really proud of the end result.

It’s not perfect but it’s done and I like it.

That’s a victory!