Don't Beat Yourself Up-- But Don't Let Yourself Slack off

The past few weeks have been interesting. Not in a bad way, but not in a great way either. Yesterday my doctor gave me news that I saw coming...from a mile away. Diabetes runs in my family. I actually had a doctor (not the same one) tell me I have horrible genes.... there is a reason I don't see her anymore! Yes, it runs on both sides of my family, my mom, my dad, my aunt, my grand parents.... blah blah blah... But this also may have been preventable. Maybe not...maybe even if I was taking the best care of myself eventually I would still have a doctor telling me what she told me on Wednesday. There is two ways I could deal with it that probably wouldn't help my situation at all...in fact it would probably hurt it.


I could blame myself for not sticking to a healthier diet or dropping the weight I need to drop and make myself feel terrible for something that I am going to always be stuck with.

I could blame it on my horrible genes... after all, I was probably going to get this anyways...

But you know what I am doing instead? Neither... beating myself up or throwing the blame onto something that is supposedly out of my hands won't help. Instead I am making an effort to stay positive, stay active, and make better decisions about what I eat. Is it going to be easy? NO....but if I want to live and be happy that is what I have to do, right? I have seen Diabetes' effects on the body if it isn't in check...that is not a road I want to go down.

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with writing...because it totally does have something to do with it!  Amidst doctors visits and my general feeling like crap... I haven't written in a couple weeks either. Let me make that clearer, I haven't been writing more of my WIP, and my blogging has been less frequent. On one end of the stick, I  could get upset at myself for not keeping to goal, which would probably not help me write more. Or I could simply blame my lack of progress on feeling like crap. Well...to a point that is valid, but I am feeling a bit better now that we have figured out what has been making me feel that way. And I am still not writing... hmmm. I've set Friday/Saturday to tentatively get back into it. I've been working on the outline too so that should help.

At some point in both writing and life you have to kick your ass back into gear. You have to learn to persevere. Don't beat yourself up if you don't always make your goals...but don't make a habit of not making them.

-Rayvenne

Just another reason...

With so many people being unemployed and unable to find a job right now the thought of being laid off is scary. And it's a real and valid fear. Even going to college doesn't guarantee you anything these days. I have been working at the company I'm with for 5 years now, and I have slowly crawled up the ladder a little bit. I don't want to go any further position-wise here because well....this isn't what I want to do with my life. It's what I am doing to pay bills while I go to school.

Some days I am not crazy about my job, but I don't hate it. It's a decent paying job and my coworkers are some really great people. Also, they are fine with me taking classes while working here and switching my schedule around to work with school...who could ask for more?

Now, before I get into where I am going with this, let me explain that we have several different accounts within the one company I work for. I was on one that was paying for my position but that account ended. So I was transferring to a different account. Well, thanks to someone dropping the ball, or simply thinking this issue would work itself out, I currently don't have a position. I'm in a type of purgatory...not yet laid off, but not necessarily secure in a job. I got sent home 3 hours early yesterday because my boss said, "we don't have anyone we can bill you to, you need to go home while we try and resolve this."

Granted they are working on a resolution, trying to find a spot for me, but this feeling it gave me sucked. Being at a company with such a high attrition rate, you would think they would really value those of us that have stuck it out, and really put into the company. Yesterday felt like a slap in the face. Someone forgot, someone ignored an issue that directly affected me without even making me aware of the situation until it got to the point of sending me home for an undetermined amount of time.

Just another reason I need to push myself ahead with my writing...just another reason I need to push myself through school. You can't rely on others to secure your own future, sometimes you have to go out there and grab you future all on your own.

This is a call to action.