When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
Metamorphosis
[noun]
– a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one.
I set up this website a few years ago and wanted it to be something of a legacy to the kids. They get bored listening to me droning on and on about the same things. I did not want to bore them the way I got bored listening to the same things again and again while growing up. So, my initial stories have been about my lessons learned and my advice. And every write-up took a lot of time and effort at my end. I had to focus and keep making changes. And I wanted things perfect. This always made writing a chore more than something enjoyable. And something that made my hair stand on end and feel exhausted by the time I was done with it. The problem with perfection is its flawlessness. (Yea! I said it!) It’s very difficult to learn from flawlessness because you are often agog with amazement around it. To learn, you need lessons that are raw and honest and that comes not from planning but from a place of vulnerability. And that was something I had been unable to do. One fine day, I downloaded Jetpack for the mobile. That came with the daily prompt widget that I promptly activated. This widget keeps things interesting and pops up a question a day that I think about and respond to. Sometimes I get on the stories first thing in the morning and sometimes later in the day.
There was this one time in the second week after I started blogging with the daily prompts, that the kids kept interrupting me. The continuous disruption ensured that I did not have the patience to sit and think through what I wanted to say and how I wanted it said. I spent almost the entire day on my device with nothing to show for it at the end of the day and I was so snappy by the end of it! This is how I usually felt when I was completing a ‘perfect’ blog from my earlier days. Nothing satisfied me. This aim to achieve perfection did not allow me to be regular with blogging either, so I decided to just write. Write about everything that came to mind when I saw that prompt in the morning. And it’s been consistent for the last 50-odd days.
It started with, ‘What is the greatest gift someone can give you?’ and just for a lark I wrote a few words about it. This was followed by the biggest challenges, what I can do differently, thoughts on the concept of living a very long life, my mission, and so many others. Initially, they were just a few small paragraphs and then they were longer write-ups, and a few in between were stories from my life. Some lessons learned, some lessons taught, some just random thoughts about how things are shaping up. But every week, there were changes, in the way I thought, in the way I wrote, in what I was talking about, and in how I wanted it presented.
Every blog chipped away a little at the mask that I have on at all times. And every blog highlighted a different facet of how I looked at and perceived my world. Eventually, I linked the website with my social media and started posting links and updates. I made my website accessible to a slightly wider and more personal audience. These were people who ‘knew’ me and interacted with me. And I thought I was leaving myself vulnerable to criticism. But every interaction made me realize that I am not alone. I have quite a few sailing on my boat of experiences and enjoying every minute of the ride with me. The reminisces became that much more poignant because there were nuances that were highlighted by interlinking memories. And this made that experience a little more memorable and I cherished the process.
January 4th, 2024, is when I started to fiddle with my website, downloaded Jetpack for the mobile, and basically spent time fooling around. And it was also the day I discovered the ‘daily prompt’. I started blogging that day, with just a small paragraph. I did not think about it a lot. I did not clean it up too much either. But a few of you have been there since those days and have seen me evolve. I’ve been writing on and off for more than a decade but have only recently started doing it regularly. The problem with doing something regularly is that you gloss over a few basic errors because you no longer see them. But, in the large scheme of things, I’ve learned a lot more from putting down these thoughts.
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence”
Vince Lombardi
Just a little more 