the indoob! network

This has nothing to do with anything, I just like this picture

Once again, my apologies to my fellow Indoobians who have been waiting for my regular writings. I also promised to make more videos but things haven’t worked out the way I intended every time I get ready to record myself. One day I forget the tripod, the next day I forget the camera, the day after that I can’t control the lighting and then the day after that I’m just no longer in the mood.

As they say, life happens.

So a video will come when it is ready. The videos I had in mind would feature my review of 2011 (the longer I wait, the less relevant it seems to do it), Oscar nominations (which you can hear on The Lost Dial) and various other things like movie and food reviews.

I sometimes feel I’ve gotten too busy for my own good. I look back on the past week and wonder where the time went. I can’t blame it on TV, as much as I love to keep up with some of my favorite shows, I only spend about two hours watching it. Perhaps I’m sleeping too much. As I type that very sentence, I think of coffee and how I haven’t had any yet.

I have lists of lists of things to do. That isn’t a typo, I literally have my lists of to-do lists. Some are church related, some are 3S related. Oh, by the way, from now on, I’m calling 3S:FX Productions, “3S” for short because if you had to say 3S:FX Productions out loud 17 times in a single conversation, your mouth would be very tired and require 2 glasses of water. Anyway, you get the point. I have things to do and I feel like I don’t get them all done in the timely manner that I expect.

I can’t wait for the day when I can hire an assistant. Oh the joys of saying “Dorthy Jane, hold all my calls.” Yes, that’ll be the day, indeed.

But I’ll end on this thought: I am taking full responsibility for not getting my plans completed. I’m blaming my lack of ambition after getting over the mad holiday hustle and bustle. I need to remind myself that people are depending on me to succeed, even if they aren’t I need to believe that they are because that’s what drives me. My fear of failure is one of a million things that keeps me moving forward, even if that translates to sitting in this chair for 10 hours editing a 15 minute video.

At this particular moment on this particular day, I’m struggling to make sense of what exactly is going on. I’ve recently run into a number of setbacks and I feel like I’m at the point of pre-panic.

What is pre-panic?

Picture this: you’re driving along on a road, all is going well, it’s a nice day, music is great, birds are singing, hunky dory, etc. But look, there’s a bridge coming up. No big deal, except unbeknownst to you, the bridge is in bad shape. By the time you notice the bridge will leave you in a bad situation, you slam on the breaks.

But you hit the breaks too late, and you are now in that bad situation.

Pre-panic is that split second moment between realizing the danger and reacting to it. Sure, you can just not panic, but we’re all human… it’s something that just sneaks up on us like a well timed joke. While laughter helps you lose calories, panicking doesn’t do much of anything except maybe freak out or annoy others around you.

In my moment of pre-panic, while I’m driving in my car, I’m remembering that old saying about Jesus being my passenger (or the driver? I can’t remember which) but either way, I look over to realize everything is going to be alright. For all I know, the broken down bridge is probably part of the journey. Perhaps I need to pull over for a little while and wait for the bridge to be repaired. Maybe it’s safer to walk across the bridge. Or just maybe there’s another route around it altogether.

The point of the pre-panic is not to panic at all. Ultimately, when using that moment in time wisely, any “freaking out” will be to a minimum if none at all. Another word for it: rationalizing. But when was the last time you remember rationalizing and panicking at the same time?

While I don’t yet know at this point how I’m going to overcome this adversity, I do know that everything is going to be alright. God has brought me this far, I know he’s not going to leave me stranded for too long.