The List, Part 3

When I read the following, I knew it was speaking to me. “I've committed to write more this year. It's what I want. Now that I've said it, I know I will drag into my writing room, and it will feel as though I have to hoist a dead body out of the way, just to sit down and type out a sentence. I'll want to wash my hands, and then research how soap got invented, and then perhaps start a small organic soap company.... But I'll stay there and write instead. “ It was written by Tama Kieves.

It speaks to one of the great myths. Do we ultimately do what we really to with our time and our lives? We all want to be happy, but do we do the things that make us happy?

There are a number a number of reasons we don’t do what we want. One of the prevailing reasons is life gets in the way. There are so many other things to get done, we sometimes don’t find the time to do what we really want.

As I wrote previously, when my children we younger we would visit the many museums that dot the Los Angeles landscape. They are now grown and gone and I no longer find the time to enjoy this activity. As the time to leave Los Angeles draws nearer, I want to know I’ve taken the time to see some of these sights.

The first problem is making the time to go to these places. Distances are so far and traffic is so bad you need to plan a full day for an outing. The second problem is finding someone to do this with. My husband doesn’t care to visit galleries and museums. I drag him kicking and screaming when we travel, but only on rare occasions when we’re home.

I came up with this brilliant idea. Why not create an Artist Field Trip once a month for the people I paint with? I enjoy their company. We share a love of art and most of the people I paint with are retired or don’t work.

While this appears to be another blog about art, it’s not. It’s actually about creating an environment to support your desires. Instead of willing or wishing myself to go to these places, I established a structure to do the work for me. It actually worked better than I realized.

I made the suggestion of the Artist Field Trip to Phyl and she thought it was a good idea. I then set up a flyer telling people the destination. If they wanted to be notified to send me an email. I would send out a blast once a month telling them where we were going. I would send out another email the week of the trip, telling people where to meet so we could carpool. I wanted to keep the process simple for me and everyone else. If you couldn’t make one month, that was fine.

We’ve had three of them in the last three months. It’s still hard for people to make the commitment. Everyone else is as busy as I am. But, it’s a start. We’ve kept it simple, but there is now a structure in place to pull me forward to actually do something I want to do.

So, what are you not doing that you want to do? Think about how you can create a structure to help you do the things you want to do.