Spontaneity

I sometimes wonder if I’ve become too rigid with my time. Ask me if I want to go out some evening and chances are I’d have to say no. Between kids and travel, I didn’t really have the time to be spontaneous like that.

Now that I’m not travelling as much, I’ve added the gym, guitar practice, and writing to my regular schedule. Most often, when I try to be spontaneous with friends, they’re all busy. Everybody plans ahead.

Are there moments in my down time where I can be spontaneous? Drop everything and do something I didn’t have planned?

Thing is, state changes can be difficult. You’re in a moment of flow and someone interrupts you. Ugh. My kids don’t always respond well to state changes either. I sometimes get revolt when I pick them up from school ten minutes early. Setting expectations ends up being important.

Every now and then, I have my moments of spontaneity. Last minute plane trips to surprise a girlfriend. Surprise donut runs before school. I like surprises like this. Moments of delight.

Can spontaneity be used to my advantage? When schedules change due to sick days or people around the house, how do I manage the upheaval? I think this is where I really need to work on things. I’ve often used that upheaval as a reason to not get things done. A travel day? Not going to get work done. Kids at home? Not going to get work done. Somehow I’ve come to need the perfect conditions to be productive and yet those perfect conditions rarely happen and, thus, I’m rarely productive.

When it comes to my recent weight loss, I’ve motivated myself to do the hard, necessary work by saying to myself I need to do the work to get what I want. I can’t take shortcuts. I can’t wait for the perfect conditions to lose the weight. And the same needs to happen with everything else. If I want to write another book, I need to do the work, regardless of whatever the conditions might be.

Life is spontaneous, after all. I can’t plan every moment. I can live in the moment and deal with whatever life throws at me, all the while putting the work in to get to my goals.