Day 7 and the last day of the challenge.  The original post can be found here: http://yourturnchallenge.tumblr.com/post/109194136920/the-last-minute-screwup

[For the purpose of reposting, I have deliberately not looked into the grammar mistakes. Because excessive editting is my way of stalling the final product, which defeats the purpose of this challenge. Specifically for this post, I paraphrased the title for this reposting.]

It is interesting how quickly we can let the last lap fall through the cracks. Day 7 of the challenge is really just that – the 7th day of blogging daily in a row.

However, since that is also the ‘end’ of something, like a 7 day #YourTurnChallenge – something always seems to come up to mess things up. Intuitively, it’s one day or one step more, before we accomplish a milestone. Rationally, we come up with reasons or actions that allows us to forego that last step.

Success is not elusive, nor is it impossible.

We just think ourselves that way.

And when we think, we are not moving, not stepping forward. When we think – possibly too much – we get paralysed. Maybe that last step doesn’t matter. No one will know. I can always try this again, it’s after all just 7 days. Maybe I don’t really want to do this. Maybe no one will like what I write.

Yes – thank you very much for the thoughts – and step forward anyway.

You might have gotten to the finish line then. Or maybe, there is still a long way to go. But for that matter, you would have been one step, then 7 steps, then many steps ahead looking back.

Maybe I can really do this.

Day 6 of the challenge.  The link to the post on the blog is here: http://yourturnchallenge.tumblr.com/post/109000265305/overwhelmed-by-the-moment

[For the purpose of reposting, I have deliberately not looked into the grammar mistakes. Because excessive editting is my way of stalling the final product, which defeats the purpose of this challenge. Specifically for this post, I paraphrased the title for this reposting.]

Perhaps it was because I had too much to do in the day, that that moment was the first point I could really pause internally.

But I think the reason doesn’t really matter.

At that point, the sun was nicely streaming in, I finally got a moment to pause and rest my feet. And just be still. Sounds of water from the pool outside. Laughter from the neighbor’s kids. My children (actually) quietly eating. And to top it off, a nice breeze through the open window.

There are moments that I’m overwhelmingly grateful, just because I’m able to experience it.

I guess the only way to justify the privilege of that moment is to fully experience it.
I guess the only way to fully experience it is to fully be in the moment, whatever that calls for.
I guess the only way I can remember its imprint is to be full grateful.

And then welcome the next moment.

Day 4 of the challenge.

[For the purpose of reposting, I have deliberately not looked into the grammar mistakes. Because excessive editting is my way of stalling the final product, which defeats the purpose of this challenge. Specifically for this post, I paraphrased the title for this reposting.]

How is it that we hand over our paycheck and then also manage to hand over our responsibilities for our own lives? Because we take our pay check from a contract arrangement, we naturally assume someone else or something (the corporation) owes us a living?
Organizational structures, challenges with change management, fall outs from mergers and acquisitions aside – we get sucked into the game begrudgingly because we hand over the reins to someone or something outside of ourselves.
It is slowly beginning to dawn on me that to take 100% responsibility of our lives is not easy, because 100% will permeate every decision on every moment of how I live my life.
For example, in a work environment, it means that no one decides which way my career path moves. Whether it abruptly stops and change or naturally grows along a certain path. Whether it stalls. Whether I get the exposure or the trainings. Whether I get paid what I think I deserve.
There is a very element of arrogance or humility that colors a person’s experience, however, Being 100% responsibility does not necessarily mean that I am always right, my way is the high way.
And therein lies the dance of life – to take humility in our interactions, to have reverance for the experience of a life, to enjoy every moment, all the time while holding the reins to navigate our own lives awake.

Day 3 of the challenge.

[For the purpose of reposting, I have deliberately not looked into the grammar mistakes. Because excessive editting is my way of stalling the final product, which defeats the purpose of this challenge. Specifically for this post, I paraphrased the title for this reposting.]

Day 3 post of Your Turn Challenge. Interestingly, I couldn’t find my past two days post. I did but I forgot to tag it so I can’t search for it again. I spent 30 minutes, to convince myself that somehow I could find it. To be frank, I was scrolling for 30 minutes into the night, getting a little desperate that I couldn’t find my posts.

*

Yet all I could do is notice the really big smile on my face. I was tired, having worked a long day. Spent a long time scrolling the webpages. While I didn’t find my posts, I know I have posted on the days I had said I would. In other words, I have started writing. I still had my work, my kids, my housework, my personal interests and some me-time to think. Amidst it all, I had started writing.

It started with a simple promise to myself and a chance encounter to post daily for 7 days on #YourTurnChallenge.

It’s now night time. Some things went my way, some things felt like their tides against me. Some things felt like fresh insights. Others felt like I was stuck in a loop.

All through that, it is now night.

But for the sole reason that I had written, I had taken an extremely small fraction of my day to do something for myself, and kept that promise, feels like an entirely well spent day. Maybe this is how it is to start ending my day exhausted, the happy kind.

No, really, I did lose my post. It was the first day post, I was psyched to group all of them together to write about my learnings in the process and that one post that I couldn’t find really stalled all my other processes. (To clarify, it’s not about the post not being there, but my inability to search for the posts on Tumblr. It didn’t help that I couldn’t remember the title of my first point.)

Needless to say, I learnt a bunch of things just from that one experiment:
1. Save your work
Probably the most common sense thing sometimes eludes us. I always figured out that I could “do something later”, or “look at it later”. When it would have been two seconds to copy and paste the post in a document so that I can use it later for this blog. What they say about a stitch in time…well, they were right.

2. One hiccup really doesn’t stall the whole project
I delayed posting anything about my learnings or just posting all the other posts on this LMM blog because I couldn’t find Day 1’s post. It was Day 1, the start of the 7 day thread so it didn’t make sense to post the rest. It wasn’t right, because I’m not posting in order. If I couldn’t find the Day 1 post, everything else had to stop. Or not. We sometimes are quick to pull the plug, and less quick to step back, think: “maybe I can still make this way, just in a different way.”

3. Remember to applaud all efforts
I did the experiment. Shipped everyday, typed 7 posts out just as I had declared. The truth of the matter is I came up to alot of self-doubt, procrastination habits and the whole process (in one week no less) made a lot of this self-defeating habits come to light. Now that I am more aware, I can work on them. All in all, while I beat myself up on losing one day’s post to the cyber-ethers, I forget to applaud myself for all seven.

So Day 2 – 7 posts are next to come.