Discipline and Adventure

Last updated on: August 18, 2015 at 7:36 am by Anne Kennedy

Discipline and Adventure 2015-08-18T07:36:16-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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About a year ago, well, maybe more of a year and a half, in some kind of fit, I decided to try to blog every day. This was a foolish decision because I have six kids and I’m supposed to be homeschooling them, and I have a big pile of stuff I’m supposed to be doing at church. But, I thought to myself, maybe I could just force myself to blog every day. What’s the worst that could happen? Of course, in my own mind, the worst is that I could fail. I could fail to blog every day, and I hate hate hate to fail. So I knuckled under and made a real go of it. You can see, most certainly, the real problem with blogging every day and that is that there isn’t a whole lot to say. There’s only so many times you can complain about the children not wanting to spell, or the dinner burning up because you were distracted by Facebook, or the dog needing a bath and a haircut, because, well, I’ll leave that to your own imagination. “I don’t have anything to say” I have muttered angrily to myself every morning as I have scrolled through the Internet, being jealous of everyone who has already said everything so interestingly. “Say it anyway,” someone has muttered back. Probably not the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t want to blame any of this on God. And so, all these many many months, I have filled up the endless pit of the Internet, pouring words in whether I really had them or not, forcing myself to write, something, anything.

And I’ve discovered, of course, that it’s not about what you have to say, it’s about the discipline of saying it anyway. When you stare at a blank screen, and then force your fingers to type, something shows up on the screen. And every day that you do it, the more swiftly and surely your fingers come to move. Although, of course, some days it’s still like hauling a boulder up a hill and then having it roll back over you as you run down. It’s the discipline, blast it all, that comes into form and shape, and drags the writing along with it. This discovery has been at once both thrilling–because it turns out I have been able to blog every day–and irritating–because I guess if I can blog every day I can also probably do laundry every day.

Discipline is not something I have believed in. I’ve always looked at other people who were doing well, who were being brilliant, and known in my soul that it was because they are just wonderful people, it springs up from the rich clever soil that is them. Whereas I, I am lazy and don’t have anything interesting going on in my mind or heart, other than the constant muttering, and therefore I will sit here and complain, because I wish I could be an interesting person. Isn’t that how it works? That some people are just interesting and do things and write words, and others just don’t. And I am one of the others.

It is a marvelous and charming discovery to see that this isn’t true. Well, I mean, it is true that some people are just wonderful, it’s just who they are, and it is true that I’m not one of them. But it is also true that by forcing yourself to do something every day, you can become more interesting than you were the day before. In the discipline, the push, the toil of writing every single solitary day I have discovered first that there are enough words, even for me to have some, and second that I totally love them. Waking up and writing before anything else means that I am set up for the whole day with energy enough for everything else. It’s so amazing. It’s such a pleasure, to have had my mental space transformed by discipline.

Also, though, I am a fearful person. Fear follows me around like a whining child, demanding my attention. Every time I push the post button, my heart falls into my stomach and I begin to pray that no one will hate me, even though I’m about to link myself up on Facebook and Twitter. What are you doing? The whining fear shouts. But if you can ignore the whining of a child, you can swallow down your own insecurity and just pretend everything is awesome and go on with the day. That said, coming to this shiny, smart platform, full of all the interesting and clever people I have always been so jealous of, has caused the fear to grow up into a big lugging teenager, insisting that I hand over five dollars. “Oh my word,” I keep saying to Matt, “I am literally going to humiliate myself.” He smiles his distracted smile and tells me to stop snuffling. “Just blog,” he says, like the jerk he is..I mean, he’s not a jerk. He’s a true gem. But he should understand that this seems like the end of the world.

But I don’t have any other ideas so I guess I will do what he says. I will just keep blogging, every day (except Saturday and Sunday) and I will probably keep putting up the weird flower pictures, and maybe some of the days it will be interesting and wonderful (those are technical writing words) and other days it will contribute to the general bilge of the Internet, and be unworthy of this space. And in between maybe God will have mercy on me, a sinner, and some of the words will be worthy of him.

And on that note, I will take my soul out of my lungs and push post, and then eat a chocolate to celebrate this incredible new adventure.

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