I have a long and storied history of being half-in. I couldn't count for you the number of projects or hobbies I've taken on, only to abandon them in rather short order.
When I begin something new, it isn't ever really about the thing itself. It's always more about proving that I can. My interest only ever lasts long enough for me to claim mild proficiency, because that's all it takes to boost my self-efficacy for the moment and make me feel good about being able to do something. I can (with varying levels of skill) play five instruments, knit, paint, write, sew, and I can spout off at least a few phrases in three different languages. I sing, but I smoke half a pack a day. I've taken up pilates, running, dance, gardening, cooking, couponing. You name it.
Am I really really good at any of those things? No.
Once I've proven to myself that I am capable of being good at whatever it is I've set out to learn, I can't for the life of my be interested in it anymore. I become apathetic, bored. It's very self-defeating.
I don't have all the answers, but I have ideas. Putting my psych degree to work on myself, it probably stems from a stifled sense of worth that I'm trying to make up for and bolster by learning how to do things that take some skill, coupled with a fear of success and aversion to commitment that prevents me from putting the time in to cultivate any of those skills into anything meaningful.
Usually, once I've put something to bed, it stays there. For some reason though, I've never really been able to put Zen out of my mind. I'd be lying if I told you that I've got a dedicated practice that I've been working on dutifully despite my cyber-silence here. I haven't done much of anything. But I think about this a lot, if that counts for anything.
I have a million excuses for not meditating (which is really the root of Zen in its entirety. If you aren't sitting you just aren't doing it). Mostly, this centers around me convincing myself I haven't got the time to sit quietly for five or ten minutes. If I'm honest, it's probably just that I find the position itself uncomfortable, and I'm nothing if not a comfort creature.
There's nothing stopping me but me, though, and I know that.
Trying to quiet your mind is one of the most difficult, frustrating, calming, infuriating, liberating, terrifying things you can do. To be alone, entirely, without even your thoughts to soften the silence. But in that silence we find the truth. Our own truth. In that silence we learn what is important and what we are falsely allowing to seem important. In that silence we discover the answers to questions we didn't realize we had been asking.
The five minutes of meditation you do before bed is better than the hour-long session you blow off at the start of your day. Don't wait for the perfect moment, or time, for anything. The perfect time will never come, in all your future. The perfect time is now. Right now. Whatever you're doing. Whatever else is in the way. The perfect moment is the one in which you decide.
