First, care.
I’ve found my resolve faltering since the new semester started a few weeks ago.
Organic chemistry. Physics. Bio. MCAT. Cycle in, cycle out. Wake up, study, go to class, study, sleep, wake up. Bike through the icy cold. Figure out what to eat for <$5 a day without letting my brain wither. Every day is so brutally mind-numbing. I feel like I’ve been swimming through a haze of exhaustion and low-level depression, as well as of constant despair over how inefficient I am. I never imagined this is what my life would be like when I turned 25.
I want this so badly. The prospect of failure makes me feel almost sick. I try to dodge it, but end up over-distracting myself. I wake up with all my muscles tense and aching.
But I picture myself 10 years in the future, purposeful and competent. I would probably just laugh off all the petty stress I feel now. And it’s just enough for me to put my head down again and keep going for another day.
I recently came across a few pearls of wisdom worth remembering:
The artists I have known who have had rewarding and successful careers are those who have been able to make very clear choices about their priorities and expectations. Once these priorities were selected, they wasted no emotion on the other things they gave up.
— Bruce Beasley, sculptor
and
Before you sweat the logistics of focus: first, care. Care intensely.
Own your distractions, resist fiddly half-measures, and never for a minute allow yourself to believe that productivity systems, space pens, or a writing app that plays new age music while you stare at a blank page in full-screen mode can ever teach you anything about how to care.
So, first, care. Then, as you’ll happily and unavoidably discover, all that “focus” business has a peculiar way of taking care of itself.
— 43 Folders (via jingc)
Yeah. I can do this.
