Make the decision first, then envision., then do it.
That could be a whole blog but I have more to say—after breakfast which I am envisioning right now.
Oatmeal porridge.
End, almost, of the day.
I’ve told you before of how badly I make transitions. I can’t suddenly quit one thing and go on to another. I have to let go slowly. This is useful in some ways. I tend to stick with a job until it’s finished, or I am. So that’s good. Beginning a new task is something else. I have to prepare for it, not only the research or the material but my mindset.
In my book about writing, The Write Track (making it as a freelancer), I told a parable/fable/anecdote that I used to get me started. Not very briefly, it’s about a baker and his wife facing the end of their livelihood: no material, no money, no customers (sounds like Covid?). As they are locking up a poor old man stops them asking for help—a bite to eat, a place to sleep. They take him in, share what little they have and give him a warm place to sleep by the fire. In the morning when the man leaves he thanks them and says “Whatever you do first, that you will do all day.”
So the couple opens the store for the last time and look at the few remaining supplies, not enough to bake or sell anything. But the woman decides to bake some cookies for a sick little boy next door and gets to work. And her husband decides to sweep the store so it’s clean for the next occupants. People come into the store, lured by the delicious aroma of the cookies. The woman can’t stop baking and the supplies don’t run out, and the man can’t stop cleaning, but the customers don’t mind. They help themselves and leave the money. By the end of the day they have enough money to buy more supplies and keep their bakery going.
A rich grocer down the street had observed all the activity and comes over to ask them about it. The baker and his wife tell him about the poor man they had helped the night before and the strange words he had said to them, like a blessing or a curse?
The grocer went looking for the poor man and they found each other. The man scarcely had time to ask when the grocer invited him home for dinner and the night. But he thought he wouldn’t have to give the old guy much. After all, the poor baker and his wife didn’t give him much—all they had, not worth anything. So the grocer gave the poor man a few leftovers and gave him a cot in the back shed to sleep on.
In the morning when the poor man left he said the same words to the grocer: “Whatever you do first, that you will do all day.”
So the grocery got his wife up to help him for the bonanza he was expecting. He told her to go over the inventory to make sure they had enough to sell and he would count the money in the cash register to make sure he would have change. They never stopped. People came in to the store but the grocer and his wife were too busy to serve them, so they left without buying a thing. At the end of the day they were no richer and very tired.
I know the moral of the story is about caring but I took it as a caution about my work, and I try to start the day with planned, good work so I get hooked.
As I was just now telling a not-very-brief story. I’m late for my dinner and I have a Zoom meeting tonight, so I had better stop now.