Proof you’re doing it
What that looks like for you / Issue 1,470
Oh, hi friends!
How do we start a week?
How do we both ease in and also grab it with enthusiasm?
I reached for a book. Here’s what I found on one dog-eared page:
"To some degree, we're always proving ourselves on every outing.
If not to someone else, then certainly to ourselves."— Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George by James Lapine
And I like this. A lot!
Today doesn’t have to revolve around being “productive.”
But what if it was about proving something to ourselves?
This proof arrives when you write that paragraph. Send that email. Make the commitment. Pick up the draft.
You’re making a promise at the beginning of the day and proving to yourself by the end of the day that you are real and what you make is real and, yes, sometimes it feels like you're starting over. When you're toeing your way back into a routine or facing what you've been avoiding, there will be friction.
But how nice it can also be, to prove to yourself that your small daily effort matters.
Because it does.
Here, here! I'm with you 100%. "...small daily effort matters."
Each day, I wake up with a feeling of possibilities and a reset. It's a chance to make progress. Progress on what? That depends on what's happening. I have this positive sense each morning or even, as you noted, at the beginning of a time increment, like a week, year, or season.
I read those words and felt.. something and I had to write my appreciation maybe a can of white paint in a dark alleyway just as high up on the wall as I can reach.