Sitting down to write

or to read

It should be easy, right? You sit down, put some words down on paper or on your screen and there you go, you’re writing. But this is not how it goes, most of the time. It’s more like pushing myself up the stairs to get to my room and to my desk and when I’m there to actually write. And you know what? I want to write. No one is telling me to. No one is forcing me to do it. I do it, because I want to do it. Of all the things I can do in life, I mostly want to read and write. If this could be how I earn my money, I would be the happiest person in the world.

Maybe you can tell me why, if this is what I want to be doing, is this so hard for me to do. Why do I find distractions I don’t need in my life and which are not good for me, instead of reading and writing? Why do I watch three episodes of Bones, instead of picking up a book? Why do I endlessly scroll through whatever app is available on my phone instead of opening a notebook or my laptop?

I had big plans for this long weekend (for me it started on Friday and I’ll be back at work on Tuesday afternoon). I picked up a few books I wanted to read, I had some ideas of what I could write on here and on my blog, I even cleaned my desk last week in preparation for this time. And guess what? I’ve written nothing till now and I’ve finished one of the books and read one more. OK, I’ve started The Wren, The Wren, but I didn’t like it enough to continue and then went for Amy & Isabelle and it turned out not to be a good book when I’m feeling low and finally started reading Be Ready When the Luck Happens yesterday evening and I was planning on finishing it today, but then some scrolling occurred and I decided to get out of it by getting up the stairs and sitting down to write to you.

I really don’t like myself when I’m like this. When I’m not happy with how things are, but also frozen into place and not doing anything about it. I can’t even complain about it, because I know I can change things and it’s all my own fault that I am where I am. I just don’t know how to snap out of it. Or maybe I do, but I really don’t want to do it.

I can see only one option and that is to force myself to do the things I want (or need) to be doing until it will become an integrated part of my days. That’s how I went about working out regularly. I was forcing myself to do it every morning, until it became a routine and now I do it without thinking about it too much. And if I could do it with working out, which I don’t really like to do, because mentally I’m a couch potato, I should be able to do the same with the things I want to be doing and enjoy very much, right? Right?

Sometimes (most of the time) it is very frustrating to be me.