Day 282: getting nowhere.

Do you remember, quite a long time ago (on day two in fact) when I committed to a hypothesis about what I might achieve from my year off the piss? No? Let me refresh. Here's what I said: By removing the distraction of alcohol and the fallout that goes with it, my mind and waking hours will be free to be used productively. This new clarity of mind and ability to focus will see me achieve amazing things. Right. Well here, exactly 280 days later, I think I'm in a position to at least partially assess the validity of that little statement. By removing the distraction of alcohol and the fallout that goes with it, my mind and waking hours will be free to be used productively. This much, I believe, is true. Having removed alcohol from my life, I do indeed have more hours in which to do productive things. And I probably have done quite a lot more over the past however many months than I have in previous years (I've changed jobs, got into shape, discovered and maintained veganism, saved for and gone on an amazing overseas holiday, read copious books, written and demoed plenty of songs, disbanded one musical group, played around with other musical projects, and finally started to put together another band). But let's take a look at that other bit. This new clarity of mind and ability to focus will see me achieve amazing things. Clarity of mind and ability to focus. Over the last few days I have been quietly feeling like I have been losing my shit, precisely because of the number of competing goals, projects, motivations, standards and opinions clamouring for attention in my overcrowded mind. I want to go to New York, have a successful band, be a better singer, get a book published, do amazing advertising work, find an amazing partner, be an attractive, healthy, relaxed, sociable girl, all at the same time. When I list it all out there, it doesn't actually sound like that much. But it is. Each and every one of those goals is an enormous, time and energy consuming project in itself. Each one needs complete dedication. Each one needs complete focus to be achieved. If I continue to hold all of them front of mind all of the time I will remain in a useless limbo and nothing will get done. What troubles me is that I discovered the need to focus on one thing and one thing alone, over 280 days ago. Why am I still faffing around with this scatter-brain approach? Was that the gods just speaking to me (my Mother?)? I just heard the word "prioiritse" echo through the outer hallways of my brain cavern. Yes. Prioritise. Forget what other people expect. Do what needs to be done now. Keep moving, and stop feeling so pathetic. After all in yoga, we only focus for an hour and a half. And within that we only focus on each posture for a minute or 30 seconds or so. Maybe if I break things down into smaller bits. Maybe if I allot say even one hour of every day to focused activities (working towards my top priority projects) I might feel better about things. Maybe then, I might start getting somewhere.