30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Eighteen: How Long Is Long Enough? Spoiler: Until It's Done...
It's the eighteenth day of this writing challenge and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I started this challenge in one country and I am completing it in another one.
Looking back, I can hardly believe the first post here was less than 3 weeks ago. It feels like months.
My initial goal - and, to be honest, the current goal as well - was to use this writing exercise as a grounding technique. I'm changing countries, which is not an easy task, and although I did my best to have a smooth and as eventless as possible process, I know from experience that sometimes things can go wild. And writing each and every day, sandboxing a little bit of time for a writing exercise, well, this can be really useful. Almost therapeutical, I'd say.
But how long is long enough? I mean, most of the logistic stuff is solved now, we found a place to stay, we moved in and we started the legal formalities, which, by design, are tedious and long. Longer than 30 days, anyway.
So, as I was thinking about this challenge, and about the commitment I put into it, I briefly played with the idea that I could just stop it, now, that the most difficult part is over.
But then I remembered a quote by Muhammad Ali (well, I don't know if it was Muhammad Ali, or it was just attributed to it, the way internet quotes are doing sometimes):
I'm not stopping when I'm tired, I'm stopping when I'm done.
So, if the commitment was for 30 days, then I will keep it for 30 days.
The value of a commitment, any commitment, is binary: it comes into existence if, and only if the commitment is kept. If you break the commitment, it doesn't matter how much work you have put into it until the moment you stop, the entire thing will worth pretty much nothing.
Doesn't mater if we're talking about quitting smoking, keeping a challenge for 30 days, or maintaining a witness node, that action carries value only if its boundaries are respected.
Only if the commitment is kept.
I can certainly understand the other side of the token, so to speak, in which value is derived from spontaneity and in which existence is experienced in a "go with the flow" way. I think there's value in that too.
But I also think commitments should be kept. Even when you feel like not keeping it. When you would like to experience a little bit of drifting away, a little bit of a break.
Nobody will build a statue of me if I'm keeping this challenge, I'm very well aware of that.
But the fact that I'll keep this commitment will snowball into even more commitment being respected as I go along.
And that process, my friend, in which future potential is built by consistent actions in the present, is one of the most important lessons I learned about Samsara.
More about that, in a future post, though. I still have twelve more to go :)
Previous posts in the challenge:
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day One: All Ultramarathons Start With Just One Small Step
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Two: How Much Garbage Do You Carry With You?
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Three: Pushing Things To Happen Versus Letting Them Happen "Through" You
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Four: The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly On The Plain
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Five: Books, Coffee And The Smell Of A Gentle Autumn
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Six: Revisiting The Harry Potter Trees In Turia
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Seven: Sand Castles
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Eight: Be Careful Of New Beginnings
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Nine: Tuesday's Free Writing
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Ten: The Power And Toxicity Of Lists
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Eleven: Unblocking Writer's Block - A Primer
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Twelve: Riding The Wave Of Change
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Thirteen: When All You Have Is A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Fourteen: Sunday Stillness
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Fifteen: The Next Major Social Disruption Will Be Technological
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Sixteen: The Difference Between Sound And Light
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Seventeen: Ten Years Of Bitcoin
Steem on!
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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Day 18 check. As you said it is binary. Glad your transition is going well.
You can't quit now, I just joined the challenge and I am thinking of the fun it will bring. I lost interest in writing recently, if I can keep up and stay consistent, who knows? It might light my candle.
Overly classic :)
that's pretty cool to know