Momentum Creates Momentum

I've always been an aspire-er. A person who aspires more than she does. It's a quality that I've struggled with for pretty much my whole life, and I still have a long way to go. But this year, I've been making minuscule progress. For the past couple of weeks, doing homework hasn't felt like pulling teeth. My done journal is more than just piddly little organizational tasks, but actually things like "Finished art history assignment" and "Wrote 800 words." I still have my share of lazy days (yesterday, for example), but where before it was hard to get back up after I fell off the productivity wagon, now I find it relatively easy to start fresh.

If you know me, you know that I'm kind of a productivity junkie. As a kid I was obsessed with routines and would spend hours imagining what my life would be like if every day was the same. (I know, I was a weird kid. Also I no longer wish every day was the same). Now I just read about famous writers' morning routines (my favorite is Darwin's: even with constant illness and anxiety about how his work would be received, he still found time to write, take long, meandering walks, and reply to every single letter he received). So really, nothing much has changed. But as much as I admired other people's orderly schedules and productive days, I was never really able to recreate that for myself.

One piece of advice I've heard over and over again is that momentum creates momentum, or in other words: the more you do things, the easier doing things becomes. A young Amelia Earhart echoes this beautifully in a letter to her mother: "Despite my unusual activity I am very well organized to do more the more I do. You know what I mean... I am not overdoing it and all that is needed for bouncing health is plenty to eat and happiness. Consider me bursting, please." Let's hope this isn't my characteristic beginning-of-the-semester optimism (see my post from last September if you don't believe me). This feels a little different, more stable, more like something taking root. No doubt there are other posts on this blog that sound like this: full of optimism and brimming with plans for the future. I was hesitant to post this for fear of sounding false or repetitive, or worse, jinxing myself out of my newfound productivity. But, what the heck.

Consider me bursting.