No matter how many times I remark about it, the feelings of surprise and anxiety that spring forth from the quickening passage of time never fail to arise. In simpler words, I can’t believe it’s March already. Is it just me, or does time appear to pass faster as you get older? I try to remember what I might have been up to years ago around this time, and without the aid of old blog posts, drawings, diaries, or school schedules, I might have been at a loss.

It’s a funny thing, too, looking over previous blog posts and drawings. Each and every time I look back on them, I am torn by simultaneous impulses to create and destroy. “Are they worth turning into an archive? Who would want to see them besides me? I can’t believe I was ever this stupid, this naive. I should destroy them before anyone else has a chance to see them.” The pack rat in me silences these thoughts and allows the posts to live for another day, regretting that I ever allowed the impulse of destruction to take hold. I continue to lament that I no longer have any blog posts from periods earlier than my senior year of high school, dating as early as October 2002.

More often than not, these posts have served as a valuable means for reflection and catharsis. Even looking back on them now, their purpose remains fruitful. The gaps between posts also serve as points for meditation, as a voice is apparent even in the silences of the last seven years of my life. A part of me wants to begin a new project based on those posts, to revisit them and comment on them as if I am an outsider unto myself. I’ve changed so much and yet not at all) since then that it does not appear to be the difficult task you’d think it would be. At the very least, it would be an interesting writing exercise. I could make a character of myself.

But we’re all characters, aren’t we?

Happiness is about living in the moment, facing the tasks at hand and letting the trappings of the world fall away. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in the coming month, and I spend so much time thinking about how to do it and when that I never really get down to it. Writing 900+ words on a Greyhound bus, a feat I never thought I could accomplish in an environment like that, gave me a little bit of clarity about achieving focus.¹ I somehow have to convince myself that there is no way out of the task, that it must be done or I will suffer consequences, that I might as well do it now, because there will probably be no time to do it later. Most importantly, I have to enjoy it.

The ride from NY to DC is 4.5 hours. I spent some time playing mobile games, reading A Storm of Swords, and contemplating sleep. But with so many hours before me, all of those things quickly lost their appeal. I was fortunate, because no one sat next to me.² I got comfortable, took out my tablet, and began to write. Before I knew it, the trip was nearly over, and I had exceeded my daily goal of 500 words. It was a wonderful feeling to overachieve, to excel. Again.

I kinda forgot about what that feels like. Not to seek overachieving out, but to merely do it because I happened to go above and beyond the limit I agreed to. In high school, I took a blow when I discovered that the bar for excellence would shift from one community to the next. However, doing this writing coalition with a friend for the past month has reminded me that we set the bar for ourselves, not our communities, our families, our societies, or our cultures. It’s not about whether the bar is low or high, but that you meet a goal that you determine, or surpass it. The hardest part is the starting.

So after a month of mostly half-assed attempts to meet those goals, I’m looking forward to March. I am sketching out a plan, a rough sketch, not the detailed, impossible to live up to agendas, but a rough plan. An idea. That I will spend at least 30 minutes a day to complete several goals, mostly creative pursuits. Among them, writing, drawing, designing, coding, close reading. It’s going to be lots of fun, and it feels great having friends going along for the ride. Forward, March!

1. Typically, motion sickness takes it out of me, and all I can manage is to sleep. [↩]
2. Normally this would make me feel horribly insecure, but instead I took the opportunity to spread out. [↩]