Down (action)
(Pandemic Diary - day 48)
From my journal: 15 April 2020 (Wednesday)
Down is how I’m feeling at the moment.
Not because there’s anything acutely bad about my current situation — I really have little to complain about, or rather I have nothing that’s worthy of complaint, especially in the context of the sufferings of the wider world.
I don’t think this is one of my periodic (small-d) depressions either. It’s just this combination of small and medium-sized issues that are getting to me and making me lackadaisical, frustrated, discouraged.
“I don’t want to be one of those people who allow the weather to change their mood or dictate their actions”
Part of it’s the weather, and that’s the part that makes me the most disappointed with myself, because I don’t want to be one of those people who allow the weather to change their mood or dictate their actions, who have a very narrow band of comfort and complain about everything else. But for me right now, that’s where I am. We’ve had warm spring weather and even something close to summer weather, but this week it’s only into the 40s in the warmth of the afternoon.
The result is that I’m looking out at the bright green yard in the sunshine, but knowing that I’d have to get bundled up to go out there and work, and knowing that the first miles of my run are going to be cold ones, and so I stay inside instead.
It’s silly, I know. I’m better than that, I know.
But I also know that I’d feel so much better if it were warm enough for me to go sit on the deck in the sun and soak in the heat of it — it could change the trajectory of my mood, and my day.
* * *
Action is the solution to all of this.
Action fixes things. Action begins movement, movement begets engagement, and engagement leads to refinements to the action so it can become more and more the right movement, the right action, so that I’m working on the things that I should be working on.
Proper action follows motion, not the other way around.