What to Do and Why to Do It

Prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, its not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

All in all, I think it’s a good prompt.  But as we hit mid-December, I’m beginning to feel a sense of deja vu with each new prompt I read.  I mean, didn’t I answer this question at least three different times already?  I think I have.

And the other thing is… Look, I’m a goal-oriented, action-oriented person.  I do not have a problem making decisions and then following through with them in action.  I don’t tend to get bogged down in over-thinking things, or in mulling over the potential options for what I might do when presented with an obstacle, challenge, or situation that requires action of some sort.  This is not to say that I always choose the right actions – I don’t – but I do act.  And not just in the sense of “by not taking an action I’m actually acting.”  I’m not Hamlet.

So while I don’t have a problem with this prompt, I am bored by the prospect of actually answering it. Because I feel like, just because of my personality, I am constantly answering this prompt throughout the reverb10 project.  To me, action is implicitly the goal of reflecting back and looking ahead.  I mean, why bother with all this navel-gazing if it’s not going to produce anything?  If it doesn’t result in action?

But so anyway, even though I find it boring, here is my actual answer to this prompt:

When I return from sabbatical and begin 2011, the most important thing that I can do is consciously to continue to practice the new habits and general approach to my life that I have worked so hard to develop during sabbatical.  I must maintain a single-minded focus on my well-being, even when the return to teaching and service pulls me so hard away from that.  I must continue to focus on my physical and emotional health, and to do things that make me feel good.  I must continue to surround myself with people who make me happy.

See?  How hard is it to figure out an action and to write about it?  And even to do whatever you’ve written about?  Um, yeah.  It’s not.

(Note: I feel like by the time reverb10 is done I will seriously have had my fill of reflecting and goal-setting for like the next 10 years, and the grand conclusion will be that I become the most thoughtless, shallow person ever as a sort of unwanted side-effect.  I am so sorry that you all are being coerced into watching what is, even for me, becoming a really tedious exercise in self-absorption.  That said, I’m committed to my navel for this 31 days and I will not be stopping, in spite of my reservations.)