Beyond IBD: transcending chronic illness

This week I will be joining tens of thousands of writers around the world and endeavouring to write a novel in 30 days. It’s the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and this will be my first year.

I don’t know if I will reach my goal of 50,000 words by midnight 30 November 2007. I do know that whatever I produce in this intensive month of creation will not be ‘the world’s greatest novel’. So why do it? I do it because writing, in any form, gives me a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment. NaNoWriMo gives writers the opportunity to come together and celebrate the simple good fun they have when writing freely and without judgment.

This is the purpose of NaNoWriMo, not to write great, but just to write. From the founder:

Embrace exuberant imperfection. Give yourself permission to make mistakes, then go ahead and make them. Lower the bar from “best-seller” to “would not make someone vomit”. Write in draft form, write uncritically, experiment, break all the so-called rules of writing. Stay loose and flexible, and keep your expectations very, very low.

Paraphrased from No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

Why not?

Exuberant imperfection is not reserved for writers. Is there something you love to do, or have always wanted to do, which you are not doing because:

• lots of other people already do it better than you ever could
• your friends and/or family will think you were crazy and/or self-indulgent and/or presumptuous to try
• you are (or will be) no good at it so what’s the point
• it’s a waste of time, there are more ‘productive’ things you should to be doing (like cleaning the windows)

These are terrible, terrible reasons not to do something you enjoy, or something that you have always wanted to try. Life really is too short.

One of the exercises I have come across, which is intended to help you clarify your life priorities, is to visualise yourself at age 70 or 80 or 90, looking back over your life. Take a few moments to imagine yourself at that age, sitting in a garden perhaps, watching the clouds go by. Think back over what you have done in your life. What do you remember most vividly? What made you happiest? What fills you with satisfaction, even now? What do you wish you had done more of?

The answers to these questions rarely include ‘cleaning windows’ or ‘paid more attention to what others thought of me’ or ’spent more time at the office getting on top of my filing’.

The Positivity Blog has a wonderful article The Eleanor Roosevelt Guide to Living a Bolder Life which begins with an awesome Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

The article is full of great advice from Eleanor about why we should face our fears, ignore our detractors and go boldly through life. This will not only give you greater personal satisfaction but will also, ultimately, make you better able to achieve positive goals and help others.

Don’t buy into the obsession with perfection

In his article Doing stuff instead of watching stuff, Colin Beavan offers an explanation for our lack of creative bravery:

The obsession with perfection that comes with the consumer culture has made many of us ashamed of our creative efforts. Few of us sing—especially not in front of each other—because we know of so many who can do it better. Few of us show our paintings for the same reason. But why is the best always so important? Besides, why waste our time making admittedly mediocre music or art when we can just plop on the couch, watch TV and eat potato chips?

So do something new, or do something you haven’t done since you were a kid, not because you have to but because it makes you happy!

What about:

• building a model aeroplane
• pottery or sculpting
• knitting
• scrapbooking
• dancing
• singing
• gardening
• painting
• drawing
• photography
• roller blading
• climbing a tree
• abseiling

Leave a comment and tell me what you would like to do!

Rebecca

• Are you trying to do too much?
• The art of idleness
• Do you have trouble starting and maintaining good health habits?
• How keeping a diary can improve your health
• Are you trying to do too much? (Part 2)