#attemptsatselfmotivation

[monakisan]

My day job! I'd love to put more of myself into my business, but everybody's gotta pay the bills somehow! 🤷‍♀️💸 . . . . . . . . I get down on myself sometimes because the only jobs I've ever had have been entrance-level and starting at minimum wage. I look at other jewelry artists on Instagram, and they all seem to be making killer OOAK pieces, and selling tons of their work, and in comparison, I often feel like I should just give up on art. It seems futile, and every time I feel like I'm getting somewhere, it slips away again (mental health issues really aren't helping with this). But I've been telling myself I've got to keep going, even if it is futile. Life this year has been driving home the message that we all die someday, often before we'd like, and I want to leave something beautiful behind after I'm gone...even if it's just a couple of unoriginal pendants, and nobody remembers who made them. 💗 #keeptrying #keepimproving #keepgoing #gottakeepgoing #dayjob #workingartist #michiganartist #personal #personalpost #thoughts #videostore #sidegig #blah #stareintothevoidandescapeintomystudio #selfie #ialwaysworrymystuffsunoriginal #attemptsatselfmotivation #fail #life #imnotgoodatthischeerfulnihilismstuff (at Manistee, Michigan) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpC0jQ-H9RU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bd3h6b7nziwr

[thesamebutalsodifferent-blog]

On Starting Blogs and Missing Blog Deadlines

It’s not like I don’t write. As of late I write things down multiple times a day - from simple to-do lists, to some notes while at work, to a more complex stream-of-conciousness essay on how my most recent relationship has collapsed into a pile of dust (and let’s not forget several passionate and slightly irrational rants supporting said essay in which I describe, with fury, the countless ways he has dumped his trash all over me, thus creating what I have become; a semi-shrew. I even wrote a ridiculously horrible poem called ‘The Recycling Project’ in which I describe sorting through his trash using words like pain, heartache, and receptacle.)

Clearly these aren’t topics I can viably write about on this here blog. They are too inappropriate, too boring, much too poorly written, ill-informed, un-relatable for a general blog reading public and…

Woah.

Since when do I only do things that I know will be successfully received by others? “Creative” endeavors that are really just carbon copies of a mode I’ve already seen or heard about. Wanting to stand out but guaranteed to fit in to an already hugely populated collective. I mean, let’s talk about why we started this blog in the first place. Mostly because to think about it made us laugh. A lot (See blog post #1 featuring our unfiltered blog topic brainstorm). Great. So we want to feel good, and starting it wasn’t so hard. About half an hour of jostling for the right platform, title, background, and profile picture. Eh Voila. Blog setup complete. We feel pretty fucking awesome.

But then what?

How, after such an enthusiastic and rewarding start, have we now missed our self-imposed deadline for two posts by yesterday?

We are Lazy and Scared.

Ahem, perhaps I should just speak for myself.

I am selectively lazy and REALLY fucking scared.

These two qualities are the very reason I have not followed through with finishing and posting three separate and promising blog entries. It’s why I didn’t end up meeting up with a kind, albeit overwhelmingly bro-y group of people I met this summer on birthright, despite being very much a part of the group text invite. It’s part of why I’m employed at and working hard to stay with a dance company that provides the closest thing in financial and economical stability as an artistic entity can to a respectable 9-5 job in business.

Lazy and scared.

And this is a universal truth for so many people. At different intensities, and in different circumstances, but it’s something we all inevitably fall into. It’s why we text and don’t call. Use tinder in lieu of opening our hearts to the real live world or patiently awaiting an honest human interaction. We hook up to make ourselves feel better instead of taking time to look inside ourselves and figure out our real problems. It’s calculators and maid service. And netflix. It’s why we eat nutella and/or a bowl of cereal for dinner instead of following up on that really cool recipe we saw on instagram earlier (Okay, that could just be pure laziness…). But all of it, the short cuts that we take, the protective nets that we lay out for ourselves, it’s easy and necessary at times. But it’s unfulfilling and it’s selling ourselves short as the capable and incredible human beings that we are. I won’t say how, because I can’t pretend that I’ve figured out that part yet, but I do believe that it is a mighty fine goal to attempt to tap into a side of ourselves that is strong and powerful, that can take the heat of a thousand judgements, and that can free up that part of our souls that needs a bit of wiggle room. Because I think that even just the effort of it can make us feel so much better.