The Show Must Go On...

I didn't get the job.  Am I disappointed.  Yes.  Am I devastated? 

Not at all. 

I'm feeling quite resilient.  Less than 20 hours after receiving my rejection email and I've already been in contact with the woman who recommended me for this job.  She's expressed her thought that there are lots of jobs out there for me in the arts and we can find them (or create them ourselves).  Considering this woman founded an arts organization that continues to thrive after almost twenty years in existence, I'm inclined to stick close to and learn from her.  

I am feeling impatient to find more meaningful and remunerative work.  


What's to come in my next essay?  I've been talking in person with other ADHD folks.  While I am neither inclined nor at liberty to share their stories I am happy and willing to share what my thoughts and feelings have been.  

Goodnight all and if you live in the US (East and South) bundle up.  It's getting very snow out there. 

Productivity and Me

This week has not been particularly productive.  I have so much to do for this music festival that I am most definitely experiencing mental paralysis.  I'm stuck on the task of making this iphoto video and it ends up preventing me from giving my time to other music festival goals.  It needn't.  Though the video needs to be done soon there are plenty of other tasks upon which I could focus.  My fantasty: to get lost, in the best sense of that word, in a project.

But back to reality...

My challenge, as always, is the toxic mental paralysis that overwhelms me when I contemplate the empty hours in front of me and the (seemingly) endless tasks that SHOULD be done, tasks that have no form, structure or boundaries in my brain.   Yesterday I actually had HOURS to work but the thought of sitting down and working on them filled me with the very typical (for me) feeling of the empty infinity, the sureness of failure that burrows into my bones. Once that heaviness has set in it's nearly impossible (at least for the time being) to reverse the process.   Needless to say, I slept two full hours and then watched at least four hours of, "Sherlock."  

So what must I do to avoid this issue because surely it will come up again and again:
  

1. Give myself a deadline for the video that is connected to another person.  That is, "I commit to showing the video to Jane Doe by Feb. 15th."
2. When I feel the lethargy coming on commit to working on something in five minute increments.  
3. Go outside and walk for 20 minutes.  Hell, 10 minutes!!
4. Phone a friend and have them yell benevolently in my ear.   

Today is better.  I received some good advice and I'm not feeling at all sleepy. 

On a final note, my interview last week when really well.  My interviewer and I talked for over an hour.  He even asked me, "how do you organize yourself ?" And I was able to give him an answer based entirely on the music festival from last year.  He seemed very pleased.  I should have an answer within the week.