Lost in the details

Never starting because you're overwhelmed by the project.

Or starting, and stopping because one small, small detail stops you.

Back in college, a roommate of mine commented she didn't know anyone who had more self-help books than I did. I read science fiction, science fiction fantasy (think trolls and hobbits and wizards and magic), and self-help books. I never read the relationship ones, but I did read a lot of the "I'm fucked up, how can I unfuck myself up?" books. I hadn't noticed that I read a lot of self-help books (though it was obvious to anyone looking at my books), and needed this smack up-side the head.

And because of that roommate, I stopped reading self-help books. She had made the comment as an accusation ("What kind of nitwit reads this shit?"), thereby causing me to stop looking outside for help and to start looking inside.

I had many more years to go before I could say I was happy. And I had many friends that helped me along the way. I knew the day was closer, though, when my childhood friend Jessica told me she liked me better now (where now was many years after college) than before because I didn't hate myself anymore.

A small comment, made casually, that also had a profound effect on my life.

Jess is good like that.

With the help of Jenny, Jess, Yosufi, Bob, Wook, Mom, Kris, Bharat, Lisa, Mark, Mike and others, I've learned to accept myself, to realize what I like and don't like about myself, to focus on the good stuff (because chances are, I'm completely exaggerating the bad stuff). I'm sure I'll die disliking some parts of me (did I mention my short legs?), but I won't die hating all of me.

And that's a good thing.

Actually, that insight was a little much. I wouldn't have thought that not writing because I had a bunch of pictures to include in my Ticked Off post, and I was tired of downloading the images to my harddrive, resizing them, putting two borders around them, uploading them to the server and including them in the post. I want to have a nice streamlined approach to posting images; I've reached my pain-point with my current process. It sucks.

And pictures are nice.

So, technology to the rescue. (Or as Bharat once pointed out to me about the two of us: we use technology to make life easier for ourselves. Usually because we're lazy.)

What a silly reason not to write: I haven't been writing because I wanted pictures in my blogs, and posting them is a pain in the ass with my current process. Because I couldn't do everything, I did nothing. Lost in the details.

Another thing to fix.