Unblocked

Inspirational song: Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton)

I know I've talked about it before, the theory that when you are emotionally, mentally, productively blocked, because all of your stresses have stacked up on top of you, the best way to start is to knock out a couple of the easy tasks first. The thinking goes that it sort of primes your pump, so to speak, and gets your productive gears spinning. From there, larger projects start to seem manageable, and almost before you know it, you've tackled the big scary problems that seemed insurmountable surrounded by everything else weighing you down.

I don't always live up to my own advice. Even knowing the above theory works, I still catch myself getting completely bogged down. The emotional blocks compound on me far more than they ought, and I end up unable to be an adult at all. I skip meetings and tell myself it was because I was having a bad illness day. I convince myself that I just ran out of time to get things done because other people asked me to do things with them, when really I could have done more if I hadn't sat to play on the iPad for an hour, and read Twitter. I let the stacks of tasks intimidate me, and I hide from them, even though the trick to unblock myself is known, tested, and confirmed.

Over the last day or two, I have finally started pulling out the easy pieces. What was that game that was kind of a pick-up sticks precursor to Jenga? Where the sticks went through a plastic tube at crazy angles, and piled on top of them were marbles; you pulled out sticks until marbles started falling, and the one who unleashed a torrent of marbles lost? My week has been like that game. I've pulled out several tasks, and only the odd metaphorical marble has fallen. Late morning today I had two or three come through at once with the homework I did for Rotary and the appointment I made where I'd been dreading the phone call (more than the actual event). The game will not be lost when I drop the rest of the marbles; it will be won. I just have to figure out which key unwanted tasks are holding back the torrent.