Comfortable Distraction

I'm sitting here in my kitchen, in the upstairs apartment, in my little yellow house. The sun has just come up, and there's a bit of snow outside. It's somewhere between not enough snow for class to be cancelled but enough to bring down an elderly person. My schedule today is a bit lax. There's a class at two o'clock that I'm the graduate assistant for and at some point I need to ride my bike for around an hour. Other than that, the world is my oyster. And that idea causes me a good amount of trepidation.

I've had the realization that I am unfortunately not quite the free spirit that I've always thought myself to be. I'm a fan of structure and schedules. I like going to class because it gives me something to plan my day around. But I'm conflicted on this. If this were really true certainly I'd be using that damn planner that I bought. In all honesty, at this moment Iâm not quite sure where my planner is. Maybe today I will plan to find it. But, the fact remains that when confronted with a lot of "empty" time where I am to decide what to do with myself I struggle.

Why? I think I suffer from a complex disease known as "Comfortable Distraction". Since arriving in Boone I have been a bit lackadaisical. I like it in this town a lot. And I like my apartment a lot. And that's a problem for me. My cat and I have more in common than I'd like to admit. We both are lazy. We both have some issues dealing with new people. We both like fish. We both have sudden bursts of enthusiasm and energy that ultimately end lying in bed. He wakes up early every morning to run up and down the little hallway from my bed to the kitchen. He acts as if it is his job and he does it with great purpose. Now he is lodged in front of the heater and sedentary.

In contrast, I occasionally find myself quite productive. Homework, research, etc. is no problem. I will sit down and begin working without a second thought. Eventually though I reach a point where I too will lay in front of the heater; the hot air pulls all the remaining productivity out of me. My cat, Jermaine, and I are creatures of comfort. And that's a problem. When I am comfortable it's hard to find motivation to continue on. I find myself reading a book or playing video games. Any moment of creative genius is drowned under all the comfortable distractions. I find that I lack my favourite trait, Willpower. But maybe that's why I'm so impressed by it in others.

So what is there to do? Maybe this is why so many artists throughout history have been troubled people. When you're uncomfortable somehow you're more likely to be creative. Unfortunately, I don't plan on picking up any bad heroin habits. And I'd rather not turn my apartment which I like so much into some sort of dungeon. It seems like, unfortunately, I must find some fortitude. But not in the traditional sense of "courage in pain or adversity", no, my courage must be in the face of a soft bed and a warm floor. Lying on the floor in front of the heater with my cat is something I should think about stopping anyway though. Some people might find that "weird".