Complacency
As a demonstration of the very concept I wish to implement in my life, I am writing and posting my thoughts and goals a day late after doing nothing to advance my goals yesterday.
Why does yesterday matter? It was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. “But Amelia,” you may be thinking, “You aren’t Catholic. Why are you talking about Lent?”
Good Question.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my life and how I had goals for where I wanted to be at this point in life. Some were more concrete than others. Please understand that I am not unhappy with my life, but the realization struck me that I am still “here” instead of “there” because of complacency.
I have a lot of potential energy but not much kinetic energy. Some of this complacency or potential energy is due to health issues: chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and long COVID. Another cause of my complacency is the simple thought when faced with a situation or problem, “That’s not an immediate problem; I can figure it out tomorrow.”
So here I sit, the day after Ash Wednesday, contemplating complacency and recognizing the irony that I have been complacent about this exact topic for the last 20 years or so.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: giving up complacency for Lent. An extremely loose explanation of Lent and the purpose of giving something up for the 40 days of Lent is to deny yourself something that you enjoy or participate in daily. When you would normally do that thing each day, you focus on spiritual matters instead. (Don’t come for me with better definitions, please. This is not meant to be a religious treatise.)
I am giving up complacency for Lent.
My goals for giving up complacency for Lent.
I work from home, and it is easy to find distractions from work that actually pays money. Therefore, I’ve created two lists of things to accomplish in the next 40 days, which will give me a quantifiable measurement of giving up complacency.
Work Tasks
Complete projects equivalent to $100 per day (including weekend days.)
Create at least 3 new products for my TPT store
Advertise my TPT store 1x per week at least.
Write 3 chapters in Jeff’s book (title pending)
Write 3 chapters in my book (Chaos Theories)
Home Tasks
Finish tiling and painting the downstairs bathroom and rehang cabinet doors.
Hang new light fixtures in the hall and over the dining table
Move Ele’s belongings to the downstairs front room
Make noticeable progress in selling or donating craft supplies (final goal is to reduce by ⅔)
Some of these tasks will require other family members to help, like hanging light fixtures, making it an excellent group effort. I’ll also invite my household members to join me in giving up an abstraction for Lent. We shall see how that goes. I used some of my craft supplies to make a poster and hung it next to the family calendar for group accountability. Maybe I can wrangle some more family participation.
Will any of you, my friends and neighbors, join me in this goal of giving up an abstraction for the rest of Lent? I’ll post updates. . . . I’ll try to post updates :)
