“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18
For some reason this proverb always runs through my mind when my motivation gets sloggish. At first, it bugged me that I thought of this proverb when beslogged. Because everyone knows vision gets you aligned with your goals and all that. Sometimes you need to know how, and not in general, but for you and your individual day! You’re just…beslogged and beblahed.
I re-read this proverb recently and realized this statement is brilliant as a compound idea. The second part of this statement is the real nugget for the beslogged. It subtly acknowledges that sticking to principles of discipline will make you happy. That’s what to do until vision returns.
I think it’s good to invite vision by reading inspiring quotes or pondering or whatever sometimes works for me, but ultimately I don’t command or control anything’s arrival. I’ve come to realize chasing it can be a bit of a time suck. So now, if vision doesn’t arrive somewhat organically like during a conversation, on one of my walks, in the shower, or while I’m doing the dishes, I chalk it up as a day without vision where my heart is going to necessarily perish a little. It’s time to just put in the time based on past vision.
Being open to vision does not mean it always comes to you.
My mom had a statement on her desk that says it another way, something like, “Discipline is what you do after the emotion of your initial decision is past.”
For a writer that means I literally just have to sit and write even when it feels epically passionless. The first year I wrote, I just wrote about what it was like to write. I don’t know, maybe the novel idea only came to me because I’d been writing like that for a year? Or maybe I just have to believe that all those 300 pages were for something! 🙂
I wrote this just to remind myself. Because right now I’m officially beslogged and without vision, and about to open a Word document…
The Productive Author 