Monday, August 1, 2011

Write? Work? Nada? Reconciling Differences

"Integrity is telling myself the Truth. And Honesty is telling the Truth to other people." ~ Spencer Johnson

I seem to be wandering in a twilight again. Some days I'm full-throttle, others, not so much. I have great ideas for my professional endeavors, but am lacking on follow-through. The more I slack, the slacker I become. At the moment, I'm bottom-rung.

Le Beau and I pulled angel cards yesterday, after spending time getting to know each other more. I shuffled, he drew first: Integrity. I pulled Honesty. Later in an email, he said, "Our cards pulled today, Integrity, honesty were prescient as it's key to everything - I was happy with those draws because all else springs from there!" So true.

Yet today, here I sit, after sleeping all morning and much of the afternoon, unable to leave my house for the office or make the phone call I've been needing to make for days. Commitments, policies, folders and files, notes and flyers litter my conscience as I do the only thing I can do at the moment. Sit. In this chair. Confessing to you.

The practice, nay, the profession I have mapped out in my head, the same one that needs little more than me moving and doing, showing up and being my Self, languishes, waiting. For me. The one ingredient without which it can never happen.

Integrity enters, calling me to task. Yet still, I sit. Unmoving. Unwilling. And unable.

Next comes Depression. Yeah. I can lean here, even hide, blame my lack of Integrity on 'the depression'. I dwell a bit, wondering if I should ask the doc about increasing my dosage of prozac. Would they bump me from 10 mg to 20? Or compromise at 15?

But I want to get off prozac, not take more.

Then Honesty knocks, enters, says, "Let's step back and look at the facts." 
"Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy, in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs." ~ Wikipedia
Okay. Account for the discrepancy. Or alter my beliefs.
Perfect honesty would have me walking away from any worldly practice in favor of my wordly one. Meaning, my heart's desire is to be a writer, and nothing more. Yet the world demands one pay her way and to hell with ones heart's desire.

Damn.

So. In lieu of a patron (or hefty advance!) I must work. I love being a doctor and helping people feel better. I just want to write so much more. I pray that now I've gotten my writerly 'fix', I can show up tomorrow for Work.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

Postscript: There's something to be said for laying it all out there. I showed up for a commitment tonight and left with two appointments for tomorrow: one a new patient, the other a returning one. Yeeehaaaa!

6 comments:

Jules said...

Sounds to me like the prozac can not mask what the heart is feeling. You forgot "Compromise" which is what we must sometimes do to achieve what we feel we must. :)

Dang, did I just that? Talk about wordly. :)
Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

Olivia J. Herrell, writing as O.J. Barré said...

Hey Jules, thank you so much for stopping by. Yes, there's Compromise. Great point!

~ Olivia

Elliot Grace said...

...dearest Olivia, I feel your pain. Spending nine hours a day drawing up quality reports regarding useless alloys and procedures for processing them...blaa blaa blaa, when all I really want to do is close my eyes, drum my fingers over the keyboard, and make the magic happen.

But alas, until sales improve from steady, to scaling cliffs, like you, bills need paid. And so off we go to fight the good fight.

You're one "hell'o va" writer, Olivia. The words you write don't tell, but paint the emotions you express. ...and you'll get there, you will ;)

EL

dolorah said...

I empathise. I know what its like to sit around the house on a day off and not write on my own work, or beta read, or critique, or blog . .

I've promises I need to keep, dreams to fulfill. But I'm worn out from the responsibility of the day life; job, kids, bills. Honesty and integrity are not easy values to fulfill when faced with conflicting desires.

Luckily blogger/writers are understanding; kindred souls pulled in all the same directions.

Just do your best, relax when you can, and breathe through it all :)

.......dhole

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

I have learned to take each day as it comes, if I feel like writing I write , if not I don't. I had a bad spell last week with illness and blogger playing up and was all for giving up but when I sat and thought about it rationally it would be me that would suffer missing all the wonderful friends I have made here.

Have a good day.
Yvonne.

taio said...

Great point!

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