Before November could unleash her usual dread upon me, I decided I’d take a proactive approach with this month. Blog every day, I thought? Would that do it? Would that do the trick and make me somehow look forward to this month instead of loathe it every day?
Some days were better than others. Some days were easier to blog. Some days, posts were planned; other days, I opened up this blank white screen clueless as to what would emerge.
30 days later, I’m now at the end of this special journey. I’m glad I did it. I needed the jumpstart — both for my writing and my life.
I loved blogging every day, and I hated it.
Blogging every day takes intentionality.
It means firing up your laptop at 11:23 on a weeknight when you have to bike to work and wake up teenagers at 8am.
It’d be so much easier to say “tomorrow” when days get away from you like that.
But since you made a public commitment — well, it’s no longer as easy as turning off the lamp and wallowing beneath the covers.
Blogging every day forces you to find beauty. Every day.
As someone naturally drawn to sarcasm and melancholy, I tend to shy away from anything that says “life is good, life is great, life is beautiful.” I mean, I know life indeed encompasses all of those things — but at the core, life’s goodness just feels so fleeting.
Friends forget you.
People die.
Cars die.
Storm clouds dump rain on your jeans as you bike home from work.
(I know, I’m such a silver lining.)
Some days, I’ll admit, I don’t want to see the goodness. I don’t want to see the beauty. I just want to complain about how disorienting life is. How disappointing. How riddled with pain and loss every step embodies.
And yet there is the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Relationships that span decades.
A car that will take you from sea to shining sea, and rain that will silence the wildest fires.
Beauty is everywhere. If we’ll only open our eyes and claim it — in a blog post or otherwise.
Blogging every day means you can do it.
And I guess the final reason why I hated blogging every day this month is that, well — I realized I can actually do it. If I really want to blog every day — or, more simply, every week — I no longer have any reason to doubt myself.
I can make time.
I can find stories.
I can jumpstart any rut.
I’m drawn to darkness and beckoned to think I can’t do something or that someone else is better than me. What’s the point? I often ask myself.
But blogging every day has helped me realize I control my own destiny in many ways. It’s something we teach our kids every day: you can’t control life’s circumstances, but you can completely control your reaction and attitude toward life’s circumstances. A silver lining can be found in most anything.
It can be tough some days.
But sometimes all it takes is a blank white screen begging to be filled with the goodness begging to be seen.
This is Day 30 — the final day — of #MakeNovemberTolerable. If you missed any post this month, look back for discoveries of beauty where beauty may be hard to find.
This, my son, is a valuable lesson that everyone (believers and non-believers) need to understand:
“you can’t control life’s circumstances, but you can completely control your reaction and attitude toward life’s circumstances. A silver lining can be found in most anything.”
Get that one down, and you are on your way to a very joyful life….. a life pleasing to the Lord!