Just 15 Minutes

OK. I have just till the big hand gets to the 12....

How do people do this? I look at my colleagues blogs and they're great, funny, insightful, informative, challenging, and so many other appropriate descriptors that fail me at the moment. I enjoy blogging and sharing some of these same types of things, but I can never seem to find the time.

Yes, things happen in life and I think, "Oh, I should blog on that." But alas, my schedule gets away from me and I never seem to get long enough to sit down and actually write it out. Here's just a few that I've let slip by:

"Storms of Life" about the awesome storms in Skopje
"The Light in the Darkness" about a period where every light in my apartment went out and it was literally beyond my reach to fix them
"The Strays" about the poor stray dogs in my neighborhood who've become so familar to me
"Beyond my grasp" about the Trinity and grasping it being akin to taking a picture of lightening
"I Resented God" about an recent insight that came as a result of studying about Mary and Martha
"Anything and Everything About Bean-Counting" this title is fascitious because it represents every random thing about being a Balkan bean counter that I've thought to say -- let alone funny experiences, challenges with exchange rates, the reality of the falling dollar, and my perpencity for anal retentiveness
"Blogs about my team" with prayer requests, events, etc.
"Driving in Skopje - An Extreme Sport" about, well, you get the idea

There are many many more, more interesting, ideas that I've had, but the moment has passed. Do I still write them? I'd like to. I enjoy writing and processing things, and if people want to read my ramblings, well, that's fine too.

Though actually writing them out is a whole other thing. I was known in college to spend 8+ hours on a simple one-page pensee for my business classes (my Prof. said it was a good lesson for me in learning to be concise). I won't begin to tell you what a nightmare my thesis on the "heresy that Paul referred to in Colossians" for my Christological Epistles class was. Or what about my final paper for my Theology class entitled "My Fresh Look at the Edge of God" processing the idea of coming to the edge of my faith and finding that it stands, because it stands on Jesus. Oh how I struggled through these topics, analysing every thought, word, structure, idea and expression. [On a side note, though, completely unrelated to my ultimate point here.... even though that process of birthing those writings was so difficult and challenging, the satisfaction with the end result is, well, immense.]

Does the word "perfectionist" come to mind yet? That's perhaps the main reason I procrastinate so much and don't actually blog (or write newsletters back home) as much as I'd like (or should -- in the case of communicating with people in the US). I'm such a perfectionist that the mere thought of writing a newsletter or blog or even "thank you" letters is daunting to me and so I procrastinate. Oh, how I need to learn to be concise!

So, that brings me to this moment. Well, actually, this 15 minutes that I've allowed myself to take a break and rant about my weakness of perfectionism and procrastination. Perhaps I will slowly take 15 minutes here and there and actually write up some of those ideas mentioned earlier. I need to "just do it" (thanks, Nike) and not worry about that there may be spelling errors, or imperfect thoughts, or (gasp) conciseness. Perhaps the more I practice this, the easier it will be. 15 minutes is so much less daunting than.... oops, my time is up and I must leave that thought hanging...