challenges, part II

As threatened, challenges. I’ve been thinking about that. What counts as a challenge is, of course, widely different from person to person, and not only that, it can also be different for one person at different stages in life. So I’ve been trying to determine what counts as challenging for me at the moment and I’ve come up with a frightening number of things:

Going out. Social interaction away from the computer, not counting my family. Reading something new. Watching a movie that is too emotional and/or thought-provoking. Staying up to date with news and what’s going on in the world. Writing on a daily (or any other kind of regular) basis. Sports (as in the healthy, weight-loss, general-health-improving way). Thinking about the future. Taking steps to learn any of the things I want to learn/improve (guitar, photography, …. a score of things). Working towards any of the million of ideas I have of what I what to do in my life.

Damn, this is a frustrating and terrible list. I hope you haven’t lost all respect for me now. I’m really not as pathetic as this makes me sound. That is… I’m not underneath. On the surface, however, I seem to be quite as pathetic at that, at the moment at least, and thinking about this, I’ve realized that I’ve been merely coasting on the surface for quite a long while now. And that explains why there are so many things that I see as challenging at the moment – apparently I’ve shut myself off from anything that has any depth or that connects with anything deep inside me.

And that’s about to change! 🙂

I’m proposing three levels of challenges: a short-term one that will cover 1 day to 1 week maximum. A medium-term one that will cover one month. And one or two ongoing ones. I’ll stick them to the side of the blog in a neat little widget, together with the time frame. The crucial part is that I really need to be afraid or ashamed of not reaching the goal, so that I push through. That’s where I need you guys. You gotta hold me accountable.

(btw – y’all made me glow and smile and all-over-happy with your comments on the last post! Big hugs to all of you!)

So, feel free to threaten horrible guilt from time to time, or if you have an idea for a good punishment, I’d welcome that, too! I’ve been thinking that maybe I could make some kind of financial agreement with myself to set aside a certain amount of money for every challenge that I failed and then give that money to some good cause? Does that sound sensible or plain stupid? It’s just an idea at the moment… (Although the danger is, of course, that I won’t mind not making the challenge… hm… difficult…)

Aaaaand, if anyone wants to join in with any of them at any time, I’d so love that, too! Mutual encouragement works just as well as fear of shame. 🙂

First round of challenges then:

short-term: I will go into town and sit in a café (extra points if I go to one of the new ones that I don’t know!) for at least one hour, either reading or writing, but NOT on the computer.

(this may not sound particularly challenging to you, and it wouldn’t have sounded so to me a year ago, but at the moment my heart is fluttering just thinking about it…)

mid-term: I will go running at least twice a week for the whole of December, each run lasting a minimum of thirty minutes.

(I can do that. I can definitely do that.)

on-going: I will take part in an “official” writing/blogging challenge once a week (the exact challenge yet to be determined).

(this one is making my palms sweat!)

Oh, and the promised cookies for reading the last post!!! I almost forgot. If you follow this link, you’ll be taken to a download location (via wetransfer) where I put three pdfs for you to download – the recipes of the cookies we made last week. Enjoy! 🙂