Writing Everyday #14
I am sitting here typing out a toast for my role at a toastmaster meeting in a few hours. I have not spent a minute preparing for today, not because of my confidence making a toast, but rather my low self-esteem. (Toastmasters is an organization where people support each other in gaining public speaking skills)
I have an issue pushing things off, there always seems to be something more pressing on my mind. When I try to plan ahead my mind races to all the failures I feel, the potential problems I will improbably cause. Then, I realize I have a deadline and I can feel my brain chemistry change. My anxiety about never being happy gets replaced by anxiety of not fulfilling the commitment to others [giving the toast]. I start to push away hunger, fatigue, and sit to write a draft. Thinking, I wish I did this yesterday in the slot of time I allocated for this exact task.
I joined Toastmasters promising myself that if I don't prepare, I won't cancel instead I will do my best to give impromptu speeches. This would cheapen the experience for everyone, but at least I would be going out and could try better the next time.
The subject is Inspiration and Motivation — I did not choose the topic. Am I qualified to say anything about what motivates people? Should I get a nice quip from chatGPT? maybe Gemini? Perhaps perplexity can find a nice quote of someone famous. NO!
I have experience severe lack of motivation and inspiration in my life and the reasons still elude me.
One thing that has helped me continue on is faith;
not that faith.
I am talking about true faith in one's self and the world: if you continue to search and do your best, good things will come.
I don't feel like good things will come.
I don't feel like I have much worth.
I don't feel like my life can get better after such a bad fall.
I feel that every choice I can possibly make is a bad one.
Yet, at some point I chose to say I have faith; I tried the alternative and believe me it is a horrible unrelenting experience.
Faith can be a powerful tool when uncertainty is present (for good and bad). I hope I can tap into the human ability to create faith in our mind/spirit to build a life I am proud of, a life shared with others, a good life.
I stayed vague and honestly wrote this post in the spur of the moment (procrastinating a closing in toast that still isn't prepared). This wasn't supposed to be about mental health, life etc. I plan to write more purposefully about my experiences and am open to talking about it in more detail, let me know if you have an interest.