What do we “creatives” do when life interrupts? We attend to what matters most. That’s what feeds the Creative Spirit in the long run.
Transcript
So on necessity. Today is all about shifting gears, shifting gears.
So today I’m super busy, way behind — you probably know the feeling. I got sick, stuff piled up. Stuff always piles up. I just got a lot of stuff going on. And so as you know, Saturday here in my neck of the woods, part of the world, whatever. And so it’s like, okay, I’m gonna take Saturday, I’m gonna just do some work, you know. And so that meant being away from my family.
Anyway, as it happened, my son, he goes to violin lessons at the school where I teach. And so he was at the school where they have violin class on Saturdays. And so I took him to the violin class, and I was working. And then my lovely wife was going to be picking him up.
So I met them out there when she was gonna pick him up, just to say hi. And they were gonna go on their way, and I was gonna work all the rest of the day.
Anyway, long story short, he came down, and he was upset cause his friend wasn’t there. And so it just became 100% abundantly clear to me that I needed to spend the afternoon with my son and not do work.
And, man, I don’t even know how I knew that, but what I needed to do was obvious to me. I think, you know, what I made reference to — Thich Nhat Hanh in the show notes for a recent podcast. And he’s talking about, you know, what do you really want. And in there he’s talking about how, you know, you gotta take care of yourself, and if you can’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of the person you love? And how can you take care of your family, and how can you attend to your friends? And it really hit home. He said, we let them down, we let them down.
And it just was clear to me, I needed to go take my son to the park.
And that’s what I did. And he was sad cause his friend wasn’t there at the violin class. And then he goes to the park, he meets some lovely kids, and they hang out for a while. And it was a very restorative time for him and also for me.
And what was cool is, like, I felt he needed me — he probably did — and yet this is one of the few times at the park when he clearly needed to be on his own and hang out with these new kids. And so he did that and he was roaming all over the park there. And I just was sitting on the bench, luxuriating in it, and just really proud of him.
I mean, I’m further behind in my work than I was at the start of the day. But this is what I needed to do today. And I’m glad I did it.
All right, until next time. Thanks for your time…