1/6/2011 - the tight, cyclical nature of the goal. . .

Yesterday, on our way home, I told Sam that it has been six days since I started this blog, and already, I've noticed an interesting rhythm:

During the day, I would starting thinking of the day's post as soon as I wake up and gather my wits.  If by early afternoon, I am still searching, a slight panic sets in.  However, every time I finish fleshing it out (and so far, I have every day) and get it sent off into the blogosphere, I always feel a tremendous relief: it is done; I can rest.

Until the next day.

After hearing this, factually and without hesitation, Sam said, "That's sales.  It's exactly what I go through every day."

Sam is a salon consultant, tasked with promoting sales of hair color and hair care products to salons in San Francisco.  He meets with clients to discuss inventory, builds relationships with new salons, sees the "need behind the need."  You know, salesy sorts of stuff. 

And, of course, as with all salespeople, he has goals to meet.  Day to day ones.  Should he meet his today, it will be a good thing.  All week, and it will be great.  But miss one day, have bad or non-existent sales for one eight-hour period, and no amount of previous good days seem to make up for it.

I, on the other hand, don't operate on a "day-to-day" basis.  I have projects that last for months and months.  One has languished under my care for over a year (poor thing).  Daily goals are foreign to me.  Or were, rather, until I started this blog. 

I told my friend Gordon about it the other night, and subsequently, he kept referring to the blog as my "gratitude paper."  I found it funny and quaint, reminiscent of a decidedly simpler (though not necessarily better) time when all I had to worry about were papers and assignments and quarterly grades.  I know Sam disagrees, and I'm sure my sister, entrenched in her last few quarters at UC Santa Cruz, would take umbrage, but I think I am enough removed from that time to appreciate those feelings of acute pressure.  To miss them, even.

So when I told Sam about my blogging rhythm and the tight, cyclical nature of the goal, he may have thought I was complaining.  Truthfully, I could not have been doing something more opposite.  While needing to produce a new piece of writing every day has been challenging, I have also been incredibly thankful to have found this drive. 

I may revise the following statement in a month, but right now (granted, after only six days), the pressure has been thrilling.  I walked out of work yesterday afternoon after publishing a post and I felt for a moment that my brain was achingly alive, like muscles after the gym. 

(Without even meaning to, I stayed true to form and let this entry ramble away from where I intended it to land.  I originally meant to write about how I am thankful for the opportunity to go have lunch with my friend Jason today, but somewhere a few paragraphs in, well, Jason got written out.  You get a sticker if you can figure out how it could ever have been about lunch with Jason in the first place.)