How do you waste the most time every day?
Grade 6 in our school was when all the students were made to master the Wren&Martin in English. I am still trying to understand what I learned from solving the extraordinary amount of sentence analysis I completed every day as part of our English homework assignments. We had to maintain a different book for sentence analysis and Wren&Martin work, which was corrected daily by Tr.C. As a student, I was confident and above average, but everything changed after three months of Wren&Martin. I was hesitant to raise my hands to respond to generic queries and if it was to solve a sentence analysis, then I tried to hide under the desk, looking for that elusive eraser that fell off my table, much like the five other girls in front of me. Unfortunately for me, my older siblings had cracked the Wren&Martin when they were in grade 6 and hence, it was assumed that I would crack it as well. Oh! the expectation. The pressure. Sitting under the table was so much more fun!
And ever since then, every time I have found something to require more effort than I can allot for it, I find excuses to hide behind. Blogging has been something I have always wanted to do, not the usual blogging, but writing little anecdotes and analogies that would help another person or just make them smile. It was something I had been meaning to do but was something I did not dedicate time to pursue. I started in January 2024 and until 110 odd days ago, I was not able to commit to more than a few days a week at a stretch. If the daily prompt had a topic I was not interested in writing about (my perspective on law, for instance), then I skipped blogging that day breaking the momentum and the link. Don’t get me wrong, I like to write. I like to tell stories. And I always find some random thing I did when I was growing up that’s relevant even today. So blogging about it was something I assumed would flow sequentially. But, to be honest, it’s been extremely difficult for me to sit and write.
Allocating the time, to sit and focus on the right words to put down takes effort. As a SAHM, I have realized that I can find several things around the house to distract me from completing my blog. So actually dedicating the same amount of time around the same time slots every day has helped me focus my efforts. Some days, I can dedicate a couple of hours and finish in that time and then there are days when I am blank. There are stories, there are lessons, there are anecdotes seemingly floating around in my head, but I am unable to find the right words to put down on paper. And I have realized in those days that writing is not as simple or as easy as everyone makes it out to be. I have spent the entire day waiting for inspiration and have only been able to put down as little as 1000 words with superhuman effort.
For me, blogging is about reading something interesting and relevant. I don’t look for authorities, I look for relevancy and relatability and I assume that is what anyone who reads my blogs is looking for. So, I try to keep my blogs, well out of the realm of being preachy and hope that they distract my readers enough to keep coming back for more. I’ve done a lot of things, some good, some bad, some hilarious, and some interesting and I try to share a little bit of all of these experiences in my blogs because I hope another person can read and learn from my mistakes and not make the same mistakes again. I know the kids enjoy reading a little bit about my life growing up in ancient India like they keep insisting it is. Each blog has had different kinds of reactions, some good, and some rather interesting. I have often discussed some of these memories with my siblings and this has triggered a different set of memories for them, either before or after the incidents creating an almost film-level stream of awareness that’s as enriching as it is entertaining. Laughs, that’s been my achievement over the last 110-odd days of blogging. I’ve sat through several group calls with my siblings and we’ve laughed about some of the memories I managed to pull out of my head.
If you ask me now, what I waste the most time every day on, it would be my blogs. Like I’ve stated earlier, sometimes, the blogs just write themselves out, because the memory is so crisp in its clarity and sometimes, finding the right words to elicit the perfect response is extremely difficult. The problem is that these are my memories, and they are all recorded from my perspective. So, when I put something down, and review it after a few minutes, I edit out the more personal emotions I may have included so I am not alluding to a particular person or experience. And some of them are so real. So stark I have had to think of a different story or experience to blog about because the first attempt was too close to reality. To be honest, reading the draft document is infinitely more entertaining than the politically correct blogs I’ve put out there for everyone. Some day perhaps.
Just a little more 