How far can we get away from ourselves?

Don't think we can. Today I lived and eventually embraced how I "be". I say eventually, because it took some time to get where I intended to end up due to the need to work through my patterns.

"The dance" headlined the morning. I adopted this term during my coursework when I noticed I'd pick away at little tasks not associated with what I really needed to do - a pleasant way of saying that is I was ramping up or getting in the mood - huh! It's total avoidance behavior - whose kidding who here? Now that I know what I do, I can laugh. Somewhere I read that the kind of avoidance behavior I enjoy so much means that the pending task is intimidating … YA THINK?? I can always find something to divert my attention.

It's all about our patterns - recognizing them as well. Patterns…isn't that a Simon and Garfunkel song? (I digress -- see how easy that is?) …And the patterns still remain on the wall where darkness fell…aah, the 60's.

Avoidance behavior can yield good stuff though: I got on someones calendar from the State Department of Education to talk about their initiatives for online learning. This is an area I am considering focusing my dissertation on so that's pretty dang cool. It starts with a calendar appointment, right?

Ultimately (and inching closer to my goal) I found myself sitting at my computer but doing stupid (read: non-comps) stuff like weeding through my emails, cleaning off my desktop, and deciding on a new image for my screen. Thanks to an email from a recent comps passee … the image in this entry now brings a grin to my face when I look at my computer. (Thanks ST!)

Suddenly (and that's how quickly it happens) I was super on-task and chuckling once again at myself. It just takes me awhile to get in the groove and I accept that. In courses it took me the first week or so to “get there”. If it took me a week to "get there" for comps, 25% of my time would be gone. That luxury isn’t feasible in this situation. If I went by the 10% "get there" rule from coursework, then on day 2.8 I should be groovin. Sounds like the 2.8 kids statistic for American families – we all know what the .8 looks like….not!! I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening when the 2.8th day arrives.

Despite hearing the news today that someone I thought FO SHO would pass comps, did not – I have to get that out of my head and focus on having confidence my abilities, infuse myself with compassion, and know that I can do this (as much as I hate using that Capellaism).

~ Fin ~