One day, when my daughter was seventeen, I asked her to vacuum the living room carpet. She looked up from the magazine she was flipping through, thought about my request for a moment, and said, I shit you not, “I don’t feel like it.”
Now, like you, I spend a good deal of my day doing things that I just don’t feel like doing.
Most mornings, for instance, my husband wakes me up at 5:30 with a steaming hot cup of tea. He’s a terrific guy, and all, but his sole motivation is to lure my ass out of bed and out the door. Out the door in my sneakers, where we proceed to run at least six miles. Right now it’s fucking dark out there. And chilly. And drizzly. And I’m here to tell you that there’s not a single morning, not a single one, that I feel like getting up to go for a trot.
And writing? I love writing, or you wouldn’t be reading this today. But there are days I get a first draft down on paper that I can’t bear to read. At this point, when I’ve got to scratch my head and decide what it is that I’m actually trying to say, I don’t feel the least bit like revising. I’d much prefer to study the contents of my fridge.
Have I mentioned the gym? I hate the gym. I hate lifting weights. I hate the smell of other people’s sweat, and the effort required, and Walt’s snotty comments about my lack of motivation. I feel like reading on my couch and admiring the Christmas tree, not doing squats.
And the Christmas tree. OMG. What a pain in the ass.
Going out to the tree farm, cutting the bloody thing down with a chainsaw made in Uzbekistan. Hoisting it onto the Subaru. Driving it home with blinking lights, cutting off another 3 feet of trunk in the front yard, cramming it through the front door and over the banister, jerry rigging the tree stand in such a way that 18 feet of pine won’t unexpectedly take out a guest, untangling the thousands of yards of lights, finding the doohickeys at the bottom of the box so we can hang the ornaments. For what? So we can have some holiday cheer.
Here’s the thing. We have to do certain things in order to get the results that we want. Most of the time, these are things that the average bear is unwilling to do.
As dear old dad used to say, “If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.”
If you want a better quality life, you’ll need to be a better bear.
To do better, you’re going to have to try You’re going to have to do things you don’t feel like doing.
I run, not because I can hardly wait to strap on the ole shoes and get on out there for a breath of arctic air, but because I want the benefits. I write because I want the sense of accomplishment and the freedom to express myself. I lift weights because I like the way it makes my body look. I drag an overgrown Christmas tree into the house because ……ummm…..
Who do you want to be?
What do you want to have?
What would you like to accomplish?
How do you want things to be?
All those wonderful things that you admire about other people, or covet— their traits, and successes, and possessions, and jobs, and homes, and lovers, and talents, and wealth– involve one hell of a lot of bother, I guarantee it.
With the rare exception, the folks that have those things had to do things they didn’t much feel like doing.
If you’re not willing to do those things, Darling, take yourself off the hook and just stop wanting it. Cause it ain’t going to happen otherwise.
If you want a clean house, you have to vacuum the living room carpet even when you’re “just not feeling it.”
