Betsy Horvath

Category: Deep Thoughts

  • Puzzle Pieces and Five Words

    Sometimes I feel like my life is a giant jigsaw puzzle with all sorts of puzzle pieces scattered on the floor around me.  The challenge is putting those puzzle pieces together to make some sort of a picture.  Which means there’s a lot of trial and error involved to find out how they fit.  Sometimes more trial.  Sometimes more error.  And sometimes I just pound the pieces to make them go together because that’s the way they SHOULD go! Goldarn it!

    Very often I think I know how to put the pieces together to make the perfect picture, pound them until they fit, and then go about my business.  Eventually it dawns on me that… “Heeeey! The reason things aren’t working is because I didn’t put the pieces together correctly.”  After all, forcing the pieces together might give you a picture that looks perfectly fine, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.

    And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? With a regular jigsaw puzzle, you can see the picture on the box so you know what you’re supposed to end up with.  But in life, you kind of have to figure it out as you go.  The picture you make depends on the pieces you have.  And those darned pieces can be put together in many different ways.  So you try, and then you shift them around and try again.

    This is made even harder when the world is going through times like these.  And it’s also hard because a lot of times, you know that you do sort of need to do everything you’re thinking about.  Every picture you’re trying to make for your life seems valid.

    We have so many conflicting pieces all trying to get attention, and they can all seem to be equally important. Sometimes they ARE equally important.  How are you supposed to know what to do first? How do you know how to put the pieces together correctly?

    A lot of people try to use goals to give them order, but, as I’ve mentioned before, detailed goals don’t work for me.  If I have a goal, I tend to go out of my way to find a reason not to achieve it. Or I get overwhelmed.

    After spending a few weeks in quarantine trying to pound my puzzle pieces together with mixed results, I realized that I needed to get back to basics.  Not goals.  Not objectives.  Instead, I needed a baseline structure to start from.

    So, because I’m a word person, I came up  with a few words to help provide me with a direction. Words to help me figure out what’s important to me, and, perhaps more urgently, help me decide the order of importance of what I need to do. Then maybe I can figure out what to focus on instead of running around  like a muppet.

    So, I settled on five words that I like.  The order they’re in is important, too – although there is some overlap, each word builds on the one before.

    The five words I settled on are:  Energy, Strength, Independence, Creativity, and Simplicity.

    So, next week, we’ll chitter-chat about Energy, what it means for me, and why I put it first on the list.

    “If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a LOT of time dealing with a life you don’t want.”

    Kevin Ngo

     

     

     

     

     

  • Finding Level

    I’ve been thinking about one of those toys that people keep on their desks.  You know, the things you get for  co-workers or relatives when you don’t have the slightest clue what else to give them. “Well, I know that they have a desk.” Personally, I used to have a bunch of Funko Pops on my desk. I don’t have room for them now, so they’re in boxes in a closet.  Because everything changes even when we don’t see it coming.

    Anyway, the toy I’ve been thinking about is called a liquid wave paperweight.  There’s liquid in an acrylic case, and then sometimes there are things inside floating on the liquid. This one is the Titanic (fitting).

    But you can also get cute penguins surfing or a sailboat (or other things, I imagine).

    So, what you do, is you tilt the paperweight and the water sloshes around and that makes the things inside the paperweight slosh around too.  Sometimes they float on top of the water, but sometimes they get swamped. They usually bob right back up to the surface after they take a little ride, unless they get broken and it doesn’t work right.

    The reason I’ve been thinking about these paperweights is because when they are tilted forcefully, or maybe dropped on the floor, the water sloshes around violently and the figure inside sloshes around violently and it can take a minute or two before everything comes back to level again.  Which is kind of how I’ve been feeling lately.

    I’ve spent the last few months sloshing around in a liquid wave paperweight, waiting for things to return to level. Waiting for whoever is tilting the paperweight to stop. But that hasn’t seemed to happen yet and everything keeps sloshing around.

    Yet life still has to go on, in spite of everything everyone is facing and dealing with. A pandemic and social upheaval doesn’t change that. It just makes it harder. It’s hard to feel creative when you’re busy wondering whether or not you’re going to have to cut apart an old sheet to make toilet paper because people are hoarding and the shelves are empty. It’s hard to dream when you see so many people suffering and frustrated and angry and afraid.

    Slosh, slosh, slosh. Days wasted wishing that damned paperweight would stop.  But it hasn’t.

    The other day, I finally remembered the truth. The paperweight never really stops moving. Ever.  The liquid in our little paperweight is always moving.  Life is always changing.  Reality is a dance of movement and change.

    Sometimes it’s just a ripple and we fool ourselves into thinking the water is calm.  Then there are times like these. The paperweight falls on the floor with a crash and the liquid moves violently, tossing the little figure inside it up and down. The illusion of calm is ripped away and we are left afraid and angry.

    I’ve been thinking that maybe the answer is not to wait for the liquid to stop sloshing.  You’ll be waiting forever for that. The paperweight will not stop tilting.  But maybe the answer is to ride the waves and keep bobbing to the surface.  The Titanic in the paperweight doesn’t sink unless it is broken.  Unlike the figure in the paperweight, most of the time I have the the option of choosing whether or not I break.

    Maybe the key is that you have to find your own level in spite of it all.  In spite of the paperweight tilting and the water sloshing. Maybe the better plan is to be the penguin and surf the waves.  After all, finding level doesn’t mean being in stasis. You can maintain your level in the midst of movement–you just have to find your balance.

    So that’s what I’m trying to do.  Be the penguin. Find my center.  Find my balance.  Find my level.  Ride my waves.  And be kind while I do it.

    “Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
    I would like to see you living
    In better conditions.”

    ― Hafiz

     

     

  • Simply Start

    I love the beginning of a new year.  I know that the divide between years is an arbitrary construct people agreed on so we wouldn’t get confused, but still.  I always think of the end of the old year as a yellowed piece of paper full of scribbles finally being yanked off a tablet.  And underneath is the new year—a fresh, bright, clean page.

    Which is part of my problem.

    See, that bright, clean piece of paper, the new unsullied year ahead, if you will, just begs me to set goals.  Where do I want to be when this new page is full of scribbles and gets yanked off?  Where do I want to go this year?  In the next ten years?  What steps do I need to take to try to get there?

    Setting goals is easy.  I’m hell on wheels at setting goals.  I can goal the heck out of a year.  Most of the time my goals have goals.  And sometimes those goals have baby goals.  If I’m not careful, every aspect of my life can have goals attached to it.  Goals are comforting.  Goals give structure.

    Sorry.  I meant to say that goals give the illusion of structure.

    Because, as we all know, a goal is really only good if you are working to reach it.

    And therein lies the problem.  That whole pesky “reaching it” thing.

    What happens to me, and I’m sure what happens to lots of other people, is I make all sorts of goals.  I see a picture in my mind of where I want to go with my life and who I want to be.  I look at everything I need to do to get there.  I carefully plan it all out, and then…nothing.  Because there’s just way too much to DO before I make any progress at all.  I’m not good enough!  I’m not smart enough!

    In other words, I get overwhelmed.

    And when I get overwhelmed, I freeze.

    Ah, hello self-sabotage, my old friend.

    If I feel—no, KNOW—that I can’t meet my objective anyway, whether the finish line is this year or ten years from now, what’s the point in trying?  So when my conscious mind says, “You have to do this!  You have goals!” my precious, beautiful, helpful, subconscious prompts me to take a nap instead.  Or eat incorrectly.  Or become obsessed with a new phone game.

    Over the past week or so, I’ve been going through my annual battle, setting goals and objectives for all aspects of my life and feeling more and more overwhelmed and discouraged at the amount of work that needs to be done.

    That means I’ve been doing a lot of napping and I got obsessed with a new phone game.

    Then, last night, a new—dare I say, unusual—thought occurred to me.

    “How about you just start?” the thought said.  Honestly, it sounded exasperated.

    I blinked at my phone and sat up straighter in my recliner, startled by the uniqueness of this idea.

    “What?” I gasped.

    “Start,” the thought persisted.  “You know, just start.  Don’t think about starting.  Start.”

    I thought about the thought for a moment.

    “Doing what?”  I asked.

    “Whatever.  Does it matter?  You know perfectly well what your objectives are.  Or you have a pretty good idea.  So do something to take a step towards them.  Start.  Somewhere.  Anywhere.”

    “Huh,” I said, mulling it over.  “Start.  Stop trying to work it all out and just start.  Huh.”  I thought about the thought some more.  “I can probably do that.”

    More thoughts came.

    You want to be an author with a lot of books published?  Write the next chapter in the one you’re working on today.

    You want to be healthy?  Don’t eat stupid today.

    You want to hike the Appalachian Trail? Climb a mountain?  Visit all of the national parks?  Hit your Fitbit steps and exercise today.

    You want a house that looks nice and cute? Do the dishes today.

    Start.

    Who knew it could be that simple?

    Is taking a small step enough for me to meet my objectives?  No.  Of course not.  Hell, no.

    But I’ll never meet my objectives if I don’t start.

    Is simply starting enough?  No.  Of course not.  I have to keep going.

    But I won’t keep going if I don’t start.

    So I’m not going to write an obligatory post about goals this week.  Oh, I’m sure I’ll be sharing my goals as we go on, and whether or not I’m meeting them, but for this first post of 2020 I wanted to encourage myself—and you—to just start.  Start somewhere.  Start anywhere.  But just start.

    After all, if you don’t start, you’ve already finished.

     

     

     

     

  • Taking Breaks

    I’ve been concentrating a lot on productivity in my writing lately.  I am intent on working more effectively, efficiently, and consistently.  Getting things done more quickly.  Not lallygagging around.  Focused.  Feet to the fire.  That’s good because these are issues I’ve been needing to address.  After all, you can’t write books unless you actually, uh… write books.  Get that butt in that chair, baby!

    But in November it came to my attention that one thing I’d forgotten to factor into my zeal for productivity was the importance of taking breaks.  To rest.  To regroup.  To re-assess.

    It’s a balancing act. I have to push myself. I have to keep my feet to that fire. But sometimes holding my feet to the fire only gets me burned feet.

    Which is exactly what happened.  I ignored the warning signs, determined to push on through.  Pushing got harder and harder.  I pushed anyway. Then I got trapped in the chapter I was writing.  I mean, really trapped.  I couldn’t seem to find my way out of it.  I went over that thing so many times it was making me physically ill to read it.  But I couldn’t seem to stop.  I wouldn’t LET myself stop. I HAD to keep going over it again and again and again.  I HAD to whittle it down until it was perfect.  It was never perfect.  But it HAD to be perfect.  I knew I should move on.  I knew I should work on other things.  But I couldn’t seem to do it.

    Some of you might call that OCD.  Some of you would probably be right.  I do definitely have my moments.

    Anyway, I couldn’t seem to stop working on that damn chapter.  I went over the same words again and again and again.  This was my mind’s way of taking a break without me admitting I was taking a break.  Actual productivity was non-existent, but the illusion of productivity remained.  As long as the illusion was there, I could tell myself I was working.

    Then my family came for a visit for a week at Thanksgiving and I finally had the excuse I needed to come to a full stop.

    Stopping is not something I normally encourage in myself.  Coming to a full stop makes it much, much harder to start again.  Stopping can be nothing more than avoidance or fear.  But this time it was essential.   

    I HAD to stop.  To regroup.

    If you are stuck in the mud, if you are doing nothing but spinning your wheels, stopping what you’re doing might not be the self-sabotage it appears to be.  It might simply be necessary.  I was losing sight of the fact that I actually LIKE to write and be creative.  The longer the wheels were spinning, the more writing felt like a punishment.  The longer you go where being creative feels like a punishment, the easier it is to give up.

    So I stopped.  Breathed.  Settled.

    And when I came back a week or two later, I was able to look at the problem with new eyes.

    You probably won’t be surprised to hear that I finished the chapter I’d been laboring over quite quickly once I’d sat back down at my computer after the Thanksgiving break.  It had seemed sooooo painful and important before the break.  But afterward, it was just another chapter.  Of course I finished it.

    The thing I need to remember is that there’s never just one way to handle a situation.  Sometimes—many times—stopping is dangerous for me because it’s so easy to turn a break into an excuse not to succeed.

    But sometimes pushing isn’t the answer either.  If all you’re doing is hitting your head against a brick wall, you just might want to, possibly, maybe, sort of, uh…stop doing that.

    I’d planned on saying here that if you stop you just have to be sure to start again.  But after I thought about it more, I realized that starting again isn’t always the answer either.  Sometimes the answer is to stop and move on to something else.

    There are no easy answers.  No one-size-fits-all way of being.  Not everything works all the time.  Not everything is right all the time.  And not everything is right forever.

    I’m happy that writing still seems to be right for me.

    And, as we all get caught up in the endless demands of a hectic holiday season, don’t forget to give yourselves time to breathe. To settle.  Try to enjoy what you’re actually doing.

     

     

     

     

  • Driving Into Change

    Yesterday, I drove down a road that I haven’t taken in months.  Actually, it’s been almost a year since I drove down that particular road with the intention of going to that particular destination.

    I used to drive that road almost every day.  Later I drove it at least once a week.  Sometimes the drive up and down that road took FOR. EV. ER.  Once, when the alarm company called at two in the morning to tell me that my mother had fallen, I drove it very, very fast indeed.

    When I drove it yesterday, there were many changes along the way that I hadn’t seen before.  New houses.  A new grocery store had been built.  An old convenience store had been torn down.

    At first glance, the house I came to at the end of my drive looked to be pretty much the same as always.  But in reality, it had changed, too.  Pumpkins lined the fence and nobody seemed concerned that someone might smash them.  New outdoor furniture sat in the front yard, instead of in the back where it belonged.  I didn’t have to go into the house to know everything inside would be different as well.

    But that’s okay.  I’ve changed, too, since the last time I’d driven down that road or walked into that house.

    Everything changes.

    Sometimes change seems to take forever.  Sometimes it happens in a panicked rush and without regard for safety.  Sometimes it is nothing more than new pumpkins at the fence.  Sometimes it is a building that has been torn down.

    There are times we can direct the change, choose to dress up our front yard instead of the back.  There are times the changes come from choices somebody else has made, like deciding to rip up a field and put in a grocery store.

    There are times when nobody directs the change, when nobody can force it to go in one direction or another.  Then we just hold on and drive and don’t look around until we’re on the other side.

    Change happens constantly, even when we don’t notice. Then we drive down a road we haven’t taken in a while to a destination that used to be familiar, and we are given the gift of new eyes to see all of the differences.

    I guess that’s life.

     

     

     

  • The Assumption of Failure

    When you start something new do you assume you will be successful?  Or do you assume there’s a really good chance you’re going to fail?  No…not a chance.  A likelihood.  Asking for a friend…. *whistles casually*

    Seriously, though.  I am finally at the point where I feel things shifting.  I feel the earth move under my feet as I gather myself to jump to the next level. It is an exciting time. But my stinkin’ thinkin’ can also make this time a lot more nerve-wracking than it needs to be.

    See, when I start something new or try to take what I’m already doing to a different level, I don’t enter into the endeavor assuming I will succeed.  I don’t walk in KNOWING that I’ll be able to overcome any obstacles in my path.  Or that I’ll keep going in spite of problems.  Or that if it doesn’t work out there’s another door opening somewhere.  If anything, I look at a new challenge and my first inclination is to assume that I’ll probably fail at it.

    Moving towards a goal, then, for me, means moving in spite of pessimism.  It means finding the will to put one foot in front of the other when I’m SURE—at the beginning anyway—that it’s not going to work out.  Movement towards a goal becomes a constant struggle—a struggle against myself.

    This, needless to say, is not good.  In fact, it has impacted my life more than once.  It is one reason I procrastinate and allow myself to be diverted into time-wasting activities.  After all, if you assume there’s a good chance you’ll fail anyway, and you find failing to be painful, then you want to avoid it or delay it as long as possible.  Sometimes the only thing keeping me on target is pure Pennsylvania-Dutch / Hungarian stubbornness.  Well, that and my spreadsheets.

    But what would my life be like if I could change this thinking?  What if I just operated under the assumption that I would succeed?  What if I walked into a situation KNOWING I could do it eventually, and even more important, that I WOULD do it, no matter what?  Yes, there would still be struggles, there would still be issues, but those struggles and issues would be part of the journey, not a useless battle with myself.

    The truth is that failure is not always a bad thing, and it certainly isn’t inevitable.  What could be perceived of as a failure might be a stepping stone to success instead.  But people get so afraid of failing that they don’t even start.

    If you assume you will succeed, if you KNOW that eventually success will happen, if you don’t automatically assume you will fail, and, more, don’t even see it as something you need to worry about, what could you do?  When I hit a roadblock, what if I ask myself “how do I get around this problem?” instead of throwing up my hands and saying “I knew it wouldn’t work.”

    If you assumed you would succeed, would failure even exist?  Or would “failure” just be a marker sending you down a different path?

    If you didn’t assume failure, would you be brave enough to start something new?  And would you stop when you were confronted with obstacles?  Or would you keep going?

    Would you listen to rational people or would you listen to your own dreams?

    I know that you can’t always control the things that come up in your life—if the last 18 months have taught me anything, it’s that.  Sometimes things just aren’t going to work out the way you hoped and dreamed and planned. And sometimes when things don’t work out, you’ll think that you’ve failed.  Many things are beyond our control no matter how hard we work.

    But we CAN control how we react to our circumstances, and more, we can control what we tell ourselves about them.  We can control the assumptions we make before we even start a new path about where it’s to go.  We can control our own narrative.

    And we can keep going.