A Conundrum

“Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.”

Albert Einstein

“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”

George Santayana

It’s been a long day.  There was so much I wanted to get done.  So far I’ve only been partially successful.  The temptation is to give into frustration or despair.   The truth is I never know what the future will bring.  What I wanted to do most of all was spend time with my Muse.  So that’s what I’m doing now.  Even though there are things that need cleaning and things that need doing, there are pages that need writing, and that’s far more important to me.  I figure I have an hour, maybe an hour and a half before I get too tired to work. 

So, taking a page from The Pledge, by Michael Masterson, I’m going plan the next 90 minutes before I get too tired to do anything else.  Here’s the plan:

·      Finish this blog.

·      Do my radio show.

·      Clean kitchen.

·      Read some more about finance.

This means I have to work quickly and well.  This is harder than usual because I’m feeling some anxiety right now.  How personal can I get with this blog?  It’s my blog, yes, and it’s therapeutic, yes, but the point of it is to bless others.  Well, it’s to bless God, the world, my family and friends and then me.  Sometimes I just don’t know what to do.

There are people who are always trying to get me involved in their latest multi-level marketing businesses.  They make me furious.  The fact that they make me furious gives me pause.  I don’t like it when people try to sell things to me.  I have a lot of stories around it, how I or my dad or people I know have lost friends over money and home-based businesses.  But are those stories justification for my fear of trying something uncomfortable or are they warning signs?

Am I like the protagonist in Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, and being spiteful just to be spiteful?  The unnamed character says of his refusal to seek medical help for his liver problem:

I realize better than anyone that by all this I am only hurting myself and no one else.  Still, the fact remains that if I refuse to be medically treated, it is only out of spite.  My liver hurts me – well, let it damn well hurt – the more it hurts the better.

           

On the other hand, I’ve rarely had good luck with sales of any kind.  I had a couple of nice things happen when I was with Amway many years ago, but overall, when I mix friends with money I usually lose both.

And it still doesn’t get me to the root of the problem, why I get so angry when people try to sell me things. 

So as I get more and more tired and as I try to solve this conundrum, all I can do is keep writing and pray for peace.  The problem is that there are no easy answers; there are only possibilities.

·      It’s possible I could make a lot of money.

·      It’s possible that I could alienate people.

·      It’s possible that I could be missing an opportunity.

·      It’s possible that I could be wasting my time.

This is one of those times I need my Muse to tell me to stay calm.  If she were here, I think she would want me to be writing, not spending time on other things even if they are good.   I really don’t know what else to do.  I’ve made a lot of progress in my life in the last eleven months, all of it because I began writing.  Is this latest opportunity another step towards that progress or is it another detour?

I honestly have no idea.  And now I’m tired and confused.  And it’s okay to know that being tired is not conducive to making any decisions or reaching any understandings.  I’m still going to Get Started and Keep Going…knowing the answers will come at the right time.