I should remember August 2013 as being a good August. The kind of month which seems to disappear just as suddenly as it began, where days melt together into a large banner of "I Done Things" and yet you aren't quite sure where one day began and the other finished. I have been trying to fill my days with things that I enjoy doing. If I want to do things I tend to need to make them into a kind of project so I can plan what I want to achieve and perceive the thing to be important enough to not be pushed out by things I like to do but don't get enjoyment from. One of the main challenges I have is in managing guilt.
Managing the guilt I feel about not doing something I think I should have done or meeting my own expectations is something I have fought with for a long, long time. I am sure that if I was to read back through this journal or cycle through the root cause of negative thoughts about myself the root of the thought would be that I was disappointed in myself. This isn't productive and it certainly is not a healthy way for me to think about myself. I am quite prone to doing this at work where I am a junior programmer working to tight deadlines and sometimes through inexperience or for speed I can cut a corner and not be aware of the implications of cutting said corner. Since code is peer reviewed before it is promoted through environments, sloppy code is highlighted, commented upon and requests to fix it are made - cue the perfect moment for a guilt-laden self-attack! The good thing about work is that time constraints mean I don't have the time to dwell on guilt and nobody is interested in a well put together apology or explanation as they just want the work done. I think this has helped to snap me out of the guilt cycle.
This snapping-out-of-the-guilt cycle is something which I have recently learned and I think it's part of the reason I have been able to stick with the projects that I am currently loving working on. At the end of the day if a comic drawing isn't completed, no one will die and no one will miss it. If I don't finish my sewing project this second there isn't a client waiting on their bespoke goods. I certainly don't have any immediate urgency for any of these things to be done when I want them to be done so I can let go of the guilt of not having achieved what I'd planned to.
For example, if I come home and decide "when I get home from work I will have dinner and then I will finish the prototoro." and instead I become distracted by blogs or The Great British Bakeoff and only cut out the fabric for the prototoro then the previous-me would have felt guilty for not having completed all of the tasks I'd wanted to complete. The new me realises that I love the TV show I watched and decides that prototoro can be brought to life another day and doesn't beat current-me up for not having done the plan.
This new way of thinking is quite freeing for me; letting go of things that don't really matter and not holding myself at gunpoint to achieve something and always feel productive. I'll share with you a brief introduction into the projects I've been working on over the past few months.
I have started a sewing blog here: http://stitchwithtea.blogspot.co.uk/
This blog is being used to document my new sewing journey so that in a few years time I can look back on my journey and smile at how much of an awesome seamstress I have become. I hope. Unlike the other things which I'm doing (such as my artwork) the sewing is the only new hobby which I have which involves me getting involved in the local sewing community to learn more. It also has the added benefit of bringing my mum and sister and I closer together as my sister and I try to learn from my mum and she enjoys teaching us.
I am preparing to 'launch' my web comic, Rumblestrut/t: http://rumblestrutcomic.wordpress.com/Why I don't just keep everything on the same host, I'll never know. I'd hoped to use the wordpress comic template but became confused as to how to set the whole damned thing up so I'm sticking to a blog for now. While just now it's focusing on the story of a little white fancy rat it will branch out into additional stories soon, all based on small furries that I live with just now. Most of the stories for this have been drafted in a Chronicles forum thread or story thread elsewhere and here I'm trying to create a comic to tell the story.
This project is probably the one I become most anxious about as my artwork is so important to me and is the one thing I'm most fastidious about and I've not had the time (even without sewing) to properly focus on this project so I don't give myself hard deadlines. That I'm so anxious and afraid of this project probably means I should do it all the more :)
Knee Rehabilitation While it isn't a hobby as such, my knee is still not 100% following my operation in March. I had been working to get back to sports these past few months but I've recently had a bit of a setback in my recovery since my knee has started locking. This is holding me back from so many sports that I loved to do so it is something I am spending a lot of time on. The most difficult part about this is trying to stay positive when I feel like I am constantly encountering setbacks.
