On meetings

Doing and failing or thinking with no action

I was thinking today how much I hate work meetings. And this thought came to me not without a reason. It was a week filled with meetings and I’m so very tired at the end of it. Every meeting I talk to people and everyone tries to push their own agenda and at the end I feel like nothing was done. Oh, sorry, that’s not right, another meeting was planned.

And this morning, with another meeting in the afternoon looming over me, my mind made a connection between meetings and thinking about doing things. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? When we think about doing something, instead of diving in and trying, we are in a meeting with ourselves, the one with no outcome and only another meeting planned or maybe not even this.

I like to say that I’m better at doing things than talking about them, but I’m actually even better at thinking about it than actually doing the thing. And if I’m honest with myself, I’d rather try and fail, or decide to stop when it’s not for me, than not try at all and be asking myself what if. And still, I keep thinking about everything I would like to do or I could do, but I’m not taking any action. Nothing is happening.

This week was busy, there were a lot of meetings, but there was also an interview with a writer I did in the library. My first in Dutch. I was thinking about doing some interviews for ages, but never dared to try and this time the writer decided it for me and I did it, I had to. And it turns out, I’m actually good at it and I enjoy doing it too. There are two more planned this year and I can’t wait. I like the preparation, reading the books, looking up some information, reading previous interviews, thinking about the questions. And then the interview itself, which is just a conversation about everything that interests me anyway. It’s a dream come true, one I never knew I had.

So now I’m thinking (yes, again, but this time it’s more planning that wishing) what I want to do next and I’m already excited about it, even though it scares me a lot too.