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28 January 2019 • Personal

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(Not So) Fun fact: on Wednesday, Jan 30, 2019, the projected temperature in Des Moines (with wind chill) will be 122 degrees colder than it will be inside my house.

It’s anticipated that cars left outside will have extreme difficulty starting in those conditions. Buses won’t operate because the diesel will gum up. These finely crafted & tuned machines1 still have trouble functioning in every climate.

The same can be said for human beings. This is literally Death Weather. The update going around right now is “hey, if your skin starts to blister from the cold (because that’s normal behavior, right?), seek medical attention immediately”. As I type this, I literally got a Groupon in my inbox for a cryotherapy session. Come to Iowa, we have that for free!

Automobiles can’t be expected to function in every climate. Human bodies definitely don’t function well in this kind of weather. So why do we have an expectation that our minds work well all the time?

There are certain circumstances where we just cannot be the best versions of ourselves. Sometimes it’s when you have a high-stress project at work. Maybe you’ve had something preventing you from participating in your normal self-care routines, like a lack of free time or an injury. Or maybe it’s LITERALLY colder than Antarctica outside, and you haven’t seen the sun in weeks, and you’d rather stay in bed with your partner and your cats than do anything even remotely resembling “being an adult”.

This doesn’t have to be allocated to the winter months either, but it feels especially relevant now. Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD) is definitely a thing, and my wife and I both suffer hard from this. This week is going to be a tough one, and I know it. There’s not an easy “fix”, as it were, but there is a simple way to try and stave it off.

And that is to start.

Whatever it is you need to or want to be doing. Just start.

When your car is cold, there’s really only so much you can do but cross your fingers and hope that it turns over. Once it starts, then it’s just a matter of getting warmed up; the hardest part is already out of the way.

I know that tomorrow night, I’m not going to want to record a new song. For whatever reason, beginning that process is just something I have a hard time with. But once I get going, it’s easy for the juices to flow.

I know that thinking about writing a blog post is easy, but there’s a reason that this is only my 2nd one of the year… because up until right now, I haven’t taken the time to really start. And as soon as I did, it’s like the words jumped from my brain and onto this post.

So here’s your motivation for today. Think of that thing that you know needs to be done, whether for work or for pleasure. Ignore all the reasons why you shouldn’t.

Get to the place you need to be.

Silence your mind.

And start.

  1. Insert snide quip about Ford vehicles here.