No pressure

Artsy!

I won’t post a review of one of my hikes today. I am still in relaxation mode. However, I am almost finished with the draft and should have it up by tomorrow or Tuesday. I have enjoyed writing it so far. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

But I wouldn’t have posted it even if I had finished it today. I don’t want to add that pressure. I want to avoid placing any expectations on my work. For now, this is a hobby. I am doing this in my own free time. My payment is simply the joy of putting in the work.

One thing this daily blog has taught me is that I can find satisfaction in doing work even though I haven’t finished it yet. Posts like this one are a good example. I can have a sense of completion by writing about the longer-form work. That way, I can have the satisfaction of publishing something while also leaving the longer, incomplete project to future writing sessions.

I used to be miserable if a project took more than a sitting to finish. I relied on the high I got from finishing a blog, story, or poem to get me to the project. When that dopamine hit didn’t happen frequently enough, I’d stop doing the thing and watch clips on YouTube. I wouldn’t get back to the project for weeks or months — if I didn’t abandon it entirely.

All of that said, there is a part of me that wants to hold this post up to a high standard. I will spend hours editing this filler post when its sole purpose was to fill my daily quota if I’m not careful. I don’t want to do a lame job, as that would be unsatisfactory. But I don’t want my perfectionism to kill the joy that is the reason for me to write at all.