Maintenance isn’t sexy. It isn’t new, different, or fun. It’s vanilla, beige, and boring. It is the same old thing you’ve been doing for years. It’s the reliable thing. The thing you can always count on when times get tough.
The problem we can have in our lives is the need for new and exciting. We want to go on the next adventure but get aggravated when we wake up each more to the same humdrum routine. “I need a change,” we think to ourselves or, “I need to shake things up!” Then we finally get angry and fed up enough with our lives we decide to make a change. It could be a new job, new relationship, getting off the couch to travel to far off places, or starting a blog who knows. It’s change we desire and change we are going to get.
Soon we are off living our new life chasing this new dream or this new goal. But wait a minute. What about your old life? What about your old responsibilities? What about all of the people we’ve cared about for so long? Many times when we are charging ahead with our new dream much of our old life gets left behind.
How am I supposed to maintain my friends, my family, and my responsibilities when I need all the time I can to follow my dream?
This becomes the problem for many of us dreamers. We think about the future and have a difficult time staying in the present. Like a dog following the new shiny object, we too are unable to focus on what’s around us. We start to neglect the little things; the things we still care about but we’ve put on the back burner to fill our own voids. We forge ahead with our new life and don’t always stop to look back.
Learning and growing are great. Obviously, if I didn’t believe it I wouldn’t continue on this blog. Learning and growth are literally the entire purpose of this blog. But as we start our new adventure it’s easy to let things slip. It’s usually the little things at first but slowly the appeal of the new makes it to forgot the old. Sure it’s okay to grow and with this growth comes change, both good and bad, but it’s not good to be so consumed by the future we overlook the present. We don’t want to forget our old life, our old friends, and where we came from in this new world of ours.
I’ll finish off with this comment I received from Tim Ferriss. He does a drunk dial episode about once a year and I finally made it on the episode. I was asking about evaluating new project and he said, “You can do everything you want, just not all at once.” It reminds me to pace myself, don’t burn the candle at both ends, and don’t neglect your responsibilities. Maintaining the status quo may not be sexy but it’s necessary. I hope this helps you as much as it continues to help me.
