{"id":135525137,"date":"2023-08-16T12:30:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T12:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=135525137"},"modified":"2023-08-16T12:30:11","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T12:30:11","slug":"reflections-on-doing-stuff-i-dont-wanna-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=135525137","title":{"rendered":"Reflections On Doing Stuff I Don't Wanna Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

“He looked…found her only in the image that saturated his private and terrible solitude. He would spend whole hours…listening to the music…” – Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, ‘100 Years of Solitude’<\/h2>

It feels disingenuous to say I don\u2019t like working out. I don\u2019t like the gym<\/em>\u2014I have a stationery bike and some weights and do things like play basketball or box or kayak. Still, it takes some mental pep-talking, building up. This is not revelatory information, but it\u2019s hard to think about how good you feel post-workout while wearily putting gym shorts on. Subscribe to learn more things you already knew. <\/p>

My every-so-often check in on my Submittable page did not<\/em> lead to me tweeting\/beskying \u201cooooh got some news but I can\u2019t talk about it yet!\u201d (any writer\u2019s third favorite tweet, behind \u201chappy pub day to me\u201d and \u201cnot to wade into The Discourse but\u2026\u201d), and I got a little down about it. A journal about lakes<\/em> rejected my Lake Michigan poem. Other journals rejected other stuff. The good news is, I\u2019m dealing with this better than I have in the past\u2014plan on submitting to other journals later day, instead of not writing for the next six months. Rejection is part of the writing life, and my mental health is better now, so we pick ourselves up and move on. <\/p>

\"File:Jimmy<\/figure>

One of the (many) jobs I have (and one of the few that pays me) is writing guides for Nande, a Chicago-based guidebook app<\/a>. It\u2019s a really fun gig, one where I get to do writeups of restaurants and cool neighborhood spots and celebrate Chicago\u2014a thing I\u2019m fond of doing, eagle-eyed readers will note. Part of the guides include interviewing business owners\/employees, which is like a doctor\u2019s mallet to the knee for my social anxiety. The dour Protestant in me doesn\u2019t allow for front-of-the-mirror pep talks, but I am definitely listening to \u2018get hype\u2019 music before each interview. This applies to guest spots on The Line Break<\/em>, it should go without saying. <\/p>

Afterwards? I feel better than great. I feel connected to people, I feel shared humanity, I feel like I\u2019m using my writing to honor others, I feel close to my purpose in life. <\/p>

\"File:15<\/figure>

If I\u2019m being honest, posting here twice a week can be taxing. It\u2019s not like I don\u2019t like blogging, and it\u2019s not like anyone\u2019s making<\/em> me do this. But I made an internal commitment to consistency. I think it\u2019s important, if you\u2019re asking someone to give a shit about something they did not ask for and do not need, to at least give a shit about their time in return. I also remember working my old warehouse job or [REDACTED] copywriting job and how much I looked forward to certain podcasts that would release on certain days. Or even way back, when I worked my worst<\/em> job (university Parking Office, not<\/em> as a student) Cracked<\/em> was running weekly columnists, and I\u2019d be like, \u201coh rad, it\u2019s Day or David Bell Day or whomever.\u201d And the day would be better. <\/p>

\"File:Young<\/figure>

All of this is to reflect, not complain. I like<\/em> the stuff I do, all of the stuff listed above, love <\/em>it even. What really gets me is thinking about what or who I would be if I didn\u2019t do those things. The x – y = z of it all is pretty easy. But sit and think with it a minute: who or what would you even be if everything was seamless all the time? Is it even worth it, living that way?<\/p>

Sorry you got an email, <\/p>

Chris<\/p>

Thanks for reading shipwrecked sailor! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<\/p><\/div>

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“He looked…found her only in the image that saturated his private and terrible solitude. He would spend whole hours…listening to the music…” – Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, ‘100 Years of Solitude’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135525137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135525137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135525137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135525137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135525137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135525137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135525137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}