Wow, has it really been almost a week since I posted reason #7? Whatever happened to that whole 'one reason per day' thing? Which brings us to $40G reason #8!
My whole life, I've had this habit of taking on or, to be most accurate, creating insanely huge tasks for myself. Occasionally they work out great (e.g. ditching the whole professoring thing and starting a career in student services), most times they don't even get started (e.g. composing a requiem mass), and in more cases than I like to admit, I get super excited about them, get rolling on them, and then give up (e.g. pick any of about a dozen in-progress home projects), or, my personal favorite, come up with yet another big idea and start the whole process over again so in no time at all, I find myself overextended and burnt out to a crisp. It's as if my personal mantra is something like: "Anything that can be done ought to be overdone." Or, maybe, "Are you kidding? Of course I wanna supersize that!"
Check it out: Here I am, smack dab in the middle of yet another impossible venture that I created for myself: raising $40G for HIV/AIDS. I've got about 5 ideas for fundraisers in my mind; a list of two dozen folks I want to invite personally to make a larger-than-typical donation (You know who you are, so how about saving me the trouble and doing me a solid by clicking here and just donating already?); a tandem that needs some serious TLC; and, oh yeah, a full-time job and a smokin' hot wife. And what do I do? I take on yet another fairly-not-really-possible activity: trying to blog a short piece about why I'm doing all this in the first place. Oh, wait, not just one piece, but FORTY of them! In forty days!
When I think about it, there's a lot that goes into getting stuck out here as often as I do. Some of the reasons that come up most often when I'm wondering how the hell I got here AGAIN in the first place:
1) Something about using big, long term projects that require thinking about the future as a distraction from the discomfort I feel in the present moment.
2) Wanting to be EXTRAordinary instead of just ordinary as a way of:
a) setting myself apart from others;
b) attracting positive, supportive attention and reinforcement;
c) mirroring my dad's behavior (yes, I realize he's been coming up a lot lately):, and/or
d) something else that might be totally obvious to you that I'm just not getting right now.
3) Intentionally, but subconsciously, setting myself up for failure.
4) Wanting to feel kind of out of control.
5) [Email me your reason!]
Back in May when I was thinking about actually taking on this $40G thing, I was certain that I'd get to that point of extreme discomfort where I was tempted to take on something else. And I wanted to be awake enough to see how I'd handle it. And one way I've handled it this time around is by taking on, not a wholly different task, but another, related impossible tasklet: 40 Reasons Why. Oh, Joaquin, we are so disappointed.
Through this year of doing or not-doing the impossible, I'm hoping that I'll gain a better understanding of why it's so important to me to create unrealistic goals for myself, and what would it be like to have 'just' realistic goals in the first place? But it's weird how that works, isn't it? If my goal were $18G, I'd be there already. However, I'm pretty sure that part of the reason I'm at $18G right now is that I'm trying to raise $40G. If my goal were 'just' $18G, I bet I wouldn't be there right now.
So, yeah, I'm trying to limit myself to just one impossible task this year - $40G - and sticking with it this whole year, not getting distracted, and not giving up, and being happy with whatever number I finish at.
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