Schedule for the reality you wish to inhabit

 

On Sunday mornings I’m part of an unholy triumvirate that meets for breakfast. It’s an informal thing. We suss out inspiration. We share insights. We spur each other on. We search for solutions to the perplexities confronting us.

Scott is an engineer and speaker (on personal and spiritual growth). Mike founded a bioneurofeedback center (to improve body and brain without drugs). Then there’s me. The outlier in the arts.

As we were leaving Mike tossed out a question you don’t hear often:

So, what will be your next insight this week?

He fleshed it out a little more. He was asking me to imagine what insight I might be struck by . . . in advance . . . and to spill it out now. 

Though tantalized by the question, nothing leapt forth.

We parted ways after sufficient nothingness poured forth from me.

Mike’s question about a potential insight for the coming week must have been playing in my demi-consciousness . . . . Because as I was heading to the Goodwill drop off I was gobsmacked with an answer to a scheduling dilemma.

(A quick note to explain why I have a scheduling dilemma: My work life has changed dramatically. 

I’m at the gallery in the mornings, overlapping with our gallery director. Then it’s off for a business errand or two in the early afternoon. For the latter part of the afternoon I’m in my home office, working from there. 

This is a new rhythm for me. 

One I’ve dreamt about for months. Now it’s here. Yay. And I’m trying to figure out how to handle it.)

The dilemma is what to schedule and when for my home office afternoon.

As I was driving an idea spoke so forcefully to me I had to pull over and record it:

“Schedule for the new reality you wish to inhabit.” 

“Specifically, schedule in your creative work as if that is how you are making part of your living. A significant part.” 

“Some part of the reality you wish to make real must be scheduled into your day.”


Normally I cram in a little creative work in the mornings at breakfast when I’m not meeting someone — and then it’s left to piecemeal in at the end of the day.

The solution to my scheduling dilemma was there: 

Schedule in some creative time in the afternoon.

In it was also the sense that the art gallery work would flow even better with a creative break wedged in.

Earlier in the week I mentioned to Mike I’d had an epiphany . . . one decades in the making. 

That there’s only one principle of creation: Live it

Live whatever it is you seek to create in your life. Live it. Breathe it. Embody it.

This Mike-spawned realization came because he asked for my next insight before its arrival. And as completion to the deeper understanding from earlier in the week: to better live my creative jones.

Since I’m creating a robust creative career, this new insight rounds the circle.

“Schedule for the new reality you wish to inhabit.” 

Maybe this will have some resonance for you too . . .

For you 

Evan Griffith
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