August 28, 2021
Lack of ambition to do anything. It happens to all of us. The stars align or misalign, whichever you prefer. We wake up feeling grumpy and lazy and ambition to do anything beyond fix a hit of caffeine has flown. What's worse is we're not sure we care too much. Maybe we don't even care that we don't care. It's a problem we don't have the ambition to fix.
Some people will hop right on that as "depression." They'd rather blame lack of ambition on a medical condition than admit they could get off their ass and do something - they just don't want to. I'm not cursed with that sort of avoidance. I can admit I'm feeling grumpy and lazy and not have a lick of guilt over it.
As I get older I see value in different things. So what if the backside of my house doesn't get pressure-washed this summer? Given the choice between pressure-washing and quiet time on the patio with the spousal unit, I'll take the quiet time. If there is one thing we all should have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic it's that people are precious. Choose people, always.
The sequel to Ride Your Luck is underway, but here at the end of summer, I lack the ambition to work steadily on it. Every day I'm more and more aware I won't pass this way again. I'll never watch Loki stalk across the backyard exactly the way he did this morning. Deuce will never interact with me just the way he did this morning. The songbirds will never call out the same songs, and the little screech owl may never come so close to the house again. These small things I would have missed had I not taken a step back from busy to look for them.
Maybe this lack of ambition I feel this morning isn't all about being grumpy and lazy. I still want to spend some time today working on the story. I used to want to hop out of bed on a Saturday morning and start pounding out the word count. This played directly from some old writing advice that said to get your writing done early in the day and it worked for me for many years. Today I know it will be too hot to be outside this afternoon so that will be my writing time. I'll walk with Deuce and tend my garden first, while it's cool.
No, I don't lack ambition. I've simply tempered my expectations of what I can actually accomplish and finally accepted it won't all happen in one day. I think I've finally become a mature person and no amount of ambition to change THAT will work.
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KC Kendricks
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