I don’t think we realise just how fast we go until you stop for a minute and realise just how loud and how hectic your life is, and how easily distracted you can get.

Meg Ryan

How I wish an Enough Button existed in my life. A device enabling me to stop the world, to become inconsequential or invisible for 72 hours. Nothing would change in the great scheme of things. It granted the gift of unassailable solitude to draw in a series of deep cleansing breaths, and just be. To recharge. To be freed from the noise and chatter of the demands, distractions, and pressures of a hectic life. Freed from the sensory overload of a life full on. Yet the button’s magical powers would ensure Tess, John, Max, and Desiree’s needs were met.

No doubt Yoga Gurus, the Dali Lama, and his monks use prayer and meditation to escape being overwhelmed. The world’s driven achievers are blinkered and don’t require such a magical device. Their eyes are always on the prize and they can ignore or mow down obstacles in their path without a second thought.

Alas, neither scenario is the case for this old bird. A dysfunctional, sacrificial impulse pushes me to respond to calls for assistance no matter how hectic the day. Parks this writer’s journey. Precious writing time, my coping mechanism, sacrificed. Three weeks ago, the neglected sought restitution. No longer called but screamed for attention. The abuse drove me to write a short story for an annual local writer’s competition. Annual is the key word, as I scrambled to write and submit by the deadline. Despite my dissatisfaction with the story, the internal push to see it through felt good. Persevere and you will succeed. Right?

Yes and no. Like anything requiring careful crafting, a devotion of time to learn the skills required and execute them is essential. Shortcomings I suffer on both counts – time and learning the nuances of writing excellent short stories. Unlike writing a novel, short stories require one to be concise, clear, and constrained in the story telling. No subplots. No supporting cast. No poetic descriptions of place and time. The essential elements I admire in a good novel.  

As for that 72-hour inconsequential and invisibility button? I’d enter my Revisionist Lair and focus on an unfinished project and attempt to understand what I’m revealing to myself. Perhaps I’d devote half-a-day to pleading forgiveness from my garden beds as I weeded, buried their dead, and offered a nutritious cocktail of goodness to nutrient depleted soil.

Though the sensory overload is uncomfortable, its manageable because I’m aware of my limitations. So rather than an Enough Button, I might install a Japanese soaking tub on my patio and relax under the watchful eye of Orion and Ursa Major; let the creative juices simmer. Yeah! That’s just the ticket to enable me to manage life full on.

How about you? How do you cope with the demands of a busy life? Is writing time sacrificed or do you manage to stake a claim on time and write? I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening. Cheers.

S.C. Roberts