Life Events and the Virtue of Patience

I will be the first to admit that I often have trouble regulating how much I have on my plate. I think I can do it all! Finish all the laundry, edit those chapters, film and post on social media, transpose those chapters for my late grandad's book, and dinner and bedtime routines with the little. Life tends to have other plans and reality tends to be much more...restrictive. Not always good, not always bad, but still extra balls to keep in air in my juggling act.

Sometimes, some of the tasks I planned have to be put down for the tasks I did not.

Lately, I've had a lot of life's additional tasks and a friend reminded me that it was a lot to deal with. Some were not great, some were, but they all required me to put a lot of my juggling balls down for the time being.

That's where the patience comes in.

I'm of the generation that grew up being told to hustle. Work hard, keep pushing, always keep climbing, and you'll get anywhere you want to go. While some of that is true, it's not the whole picture. Patience is a big part of the equation too.

Patience to let your hard work show organic results.

Patience to wait and recognize the right opportunities for your goal.

Patience with yourself to put some tasks down while you deal with immediate needs. That's where I have been. Remembering that I need patience as much as I need to hustle.

For those that know, I had recently been laid off from my paying job. (As much as I want books to be my paying job, it is not at this point). While I looked for a new job, I poured what time I had into our home life and learning more about social media. Even a little more about marketing in general. (Hence the beginning of this blog).

I wanted to spend more time editing, building up this website, and author stuff in general, but my mother, who watches my daughter, had been sick with Covid and it took her all month to recover. It was very nice to spend that time giving my daughter the attention she wants and our house chores regularly taken care of.

But now I have a new job, my mother is recovering, and a new routine will shortly work itself out. Potentially with the opportunity for more time to focus on my author takss. As this new normal emerges, I will continue to hustle and grow, but it's important to remember to also have patience. To let the new norm develop, to let what I have learned show organic results, and with myself when things I plan don't always work out.

My in-person interview look.