Running Smoothly

I have a few new things I’m quite enjoying. I have a slick new iPhone, my hard drive is new and way faster than my old one, and my car still feels newish to me after about a year. What all these new toys have in common is that they work every time I use them. I don’t worry if this will be the time they don’t turn on, or if an application won’t work, or if they won’t get me to Portland. I turn them on and everything runs smoothly until I turn them off. What luxury.

You see, I get used to things not working that well. With phones and computers and cars a natural degradation occurs over time. Usually, the degradation is slow enough that I don’t notice, or the change is small enough that I quickly accept them. I didn’t really need to play that game that won’t work on my phone, and the stain on the passenger seat isn’t that noticeable. I seem capable of getting used to anything, which I consider a strength until I look up and realize half of what I own only works half of the time.

This is true of ideas also. I come up with an idea about how to relate to someone, or write a story, or teach a workshop, and do not always notice how that idea is aging. Or rather, I do not notice how I am aging. The idea remains what it always was, but I continue to grow – sometimes as slowly as a tree sprouts new branches, but growing just the same. Inevitably, I run up against an idea’s limitations, and I do not recognize that discomfort, that frustration, that irritation for what it is. I figure I’m the problem.

And indeed I am, insofar as I am reluctant to let go of the familiar. My old phone, hard drive, and car did not weep when I let them go. Ideas are no different, except that I never believed I am my phone or car. I have occasionally believed I am my ideas. They came to me and I lived happily by them until we seemed one and the same. I can’t let go of what I am. Who would I be?

I would be what I always have been, a thing meant to run smoothly, traveling every day from one story to the next.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com