Category: Work & Life

Posted in What I Do

Not Today

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

My writing hour is almost done.

I’ve spent most of it writing. Processing. Polishing. Pondering. And I have nothing immediate to show for it. There isn’t a post I can click publish on or a complete thought I can share. There’s just a bunch of stuff “in progress.” It will get there — at least, most of it will.

But not today.

If I were to post those thoughts today, they’d feel like an airplane unable to land. Or they would communicate something completely different from what I really want to communicate.

So, I’m sitting here thinking about my self-imposed blog schedule. About my desire to have something go live in just a few minutes. And I’m confessing to myself that I just don’t have it today.

But, here’s the thing. I’m going to post this. These words of confession. Not to be legalistic in my blog planning but to just keep me going. To keep something happening here. Because I know if I stop the habit for a day, I’m likely to drop it completely. If I let an off day derail me, I’ll stay derailed. It’s my personality.

So, I’m sharing a post that, in my mind, is pointless. I’m publishing words that, on their own, really don’t do much for myself or anyone else.

But sometimes it’s not about the words. Or the results. Or the specifics. It’s about keeping on when there’s nothing there.

Like today.

Posted in Tool Box

The Tool for All Tool Boxes

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I must admit to a bit of a chuckle as I start this thought.

I don’t know of a single person who likes to be called a “tool” or relegated to the idea of simply being a resource or a useful thing.

And yet, when it comes to building tool boxes to fit current needs or prepare for something we desire to do — any hobby, habit, journey, adventure, activity, job, task, or any other noun we can think of — the people around us truly are our greatest resource. If we have nothing else, we should grab onto people!

First, people provide real experience.

Even if we’re trailblazing and doing something no one else has technically ever done before, we’re blazing those trails because of the experience of people who have accomplished much before us. They’ve laid groundwork, created the resources we use, or simply lived an example of what it means to blaze those new trails.

How much more should we lean on that experience when we are carrying on a torch, continuing the work of those who have been doing it for generations?

Wisdom based on the experience of others can come in many forms. It can be found in books written across the centuries. In information shared through our many avenues of modern media (yes, even social media can have good uses!). In products and resources created by others to equip our journey. In personal relationships with those who share our interests.

Sifting through the experience of others will require patience and wisdom, but it’s an invaluable resource when it comes to building your own tool box.

People understand resources.

In my homeschooling years, one of the most common and important, yet also most problematic, questions fellow homeschoolers asked was, “What curriculum should I use?” Let me tell you, homeschoolers are very ready to let you know what their favorite homeschool curriculum is and why it’s absolutely perfect!

But, that was never the best advice. The best advice came from those who stopped to say, “Tell me about your family.” Before offering a single suggestion, they wanted to understand the needs of each child and the dynamics of the homeschool family. Then and only then would they offer suggestions about resources.

That’s the kind of people you want to lean on as you build your tool box. The ones who will understand who and where you are. The ones who will share with you as you experiment. The ones who aren’t offended if you choose a resource or path that’s different from their own because they know you have different needs.

Again, some of these people will be those you know personally. Others will be people who share information through websites, podcasts, books, or other resources. Whoever they are, look for those who understand what it means to match people to resources, not just promote a “one-size fits-all” solution. (That’s as much of a myth in filling your tool box as it is in shopping for clothes, by the way.)

Finally, people offer community.

This is truly the most important one. You want to gather people who stand beside you. Provide encouragement. Offer guardrails to keep you from going too crazy. But also provides safe space to let you get a little crazy (because that’s a necessity for any growth).

They might not actually share your new adventure. And that’s okay. If they’re willing to walk beside you, that’s incredibly valuable.

Adjacency is a popular concept these days. Adjacent play. Adjacent work. People each doing their own thing, but together. Consider how much easier it can be to do certain tasks, even distasteful ones, if you simply have someone nearby. It’s always easier for me to focus on work when my husband is working from home and sitting at the desk next to mine. It’s easier for my daughter to tackle housework if she has someone there to jabber at, even if they aren’t actually helping with the work.

People.

If you don’t gather anything else, gather your people. It’s the one tool you’ll never regret having.

Posted in What I Do, Work & Life

The Fear of Writing

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Anytime I come back to a healthy habit after stopping for a while, I have a strong temptation to delay working on the new habit while I get “caught up.”

Take writing as an example. My structure is to use a tool called Scrivener to create my thoughts. I have color coded labels for the thoughts, based on where they are in the writing process. Some are just ideas tossed out to marinate for later writing. Others are slightly more fleshed out ideas that I call “In Progress.” Not quite to a rough draft yet, but definitely more meaty than a basic idea.

Then I have the rough drafts, and occasionally I have a small stockpile of completely edited posts or articles that simply haven’t been published yet. Finally, there are the ones marked as published to my blog. Technically, they are supposed to be stored in a separate folder, but frequently I don’t get around to moving them as soon as I publish them. So, they simply add one more splash of color to my menu of thoughts and ideas.

Those colors are what I see as I open Scrivener for the first time in a while. Colors connected to titles. Titles that I sometimes vaguely remember and other times seem to have no recollection of creating. So, naturally, sifting through those titles sounds like a lot more fun than actually writing. I can organize. Finally get those published articles moved to their own folder. Read through all of the drafts to see if there’s anything I want to edit. Read through all of the ideas to determine whether or not they are still viable.

Don’t get me wrong — editing a rough draft is a great way to get back into writing. And writing prompts, especially prompts I’ve created for myself, can be extraordinarily helpful when I’m out of practice or don’t have current ideas.

The problem is that I frequently don’t actually ever get around to editing or fleshing out a prompt. I just review. Organize. Piddle. Plan.

I don’t write.

Why? Because, if I’m honest with myself, I’m scared. Scared that the ideas will never come again like they used to. Scared that, even if they do come, they won’t be any good. Or even if they’re good ideas, I won’t actually be able to communicate them in a way that makes sense. It will simply be rambling confusion that does no one any good.

Scared that I’m wasting my time believing that writing is a part of me. The evidence is there. I’ve craved writing for as long as I can remember. In fact, I recall a time as a preschooler when I had a pencil and a piece of paper. I had no idea how to form letters, much less words. But I had thoughts. I had seen my mom write things down, and I wanted to do the same. I vividly remember the intense feeling of frustration because, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t make my scribbles look like words. I couldn’t create something that could be read again later.

I physically couldn’t write. But oh, how I wanted to! How I longed to be able to record the things I was thinking, even at the young age of three or four.

Yes, writing is a part of me. But there are so many reasons I still shy away from writing. So many reasons I prefer to waste time reviewing. Evaluating. Organizing. Anything to keep me from writing.

Recently, I restarted this writing habit. On that first day, I didn’t even let myself review prompts. I made myself create a blank page and just start randomly filling it. Stopping, starting, deleting, redirecting. I allowed myself to edit as I went along, but only to the extent that it kept me going. Kept me writing. Kept me filing the page with thoughts, no matter how random or disjointed.

It might be that no one ever reads those thoughts. It might be that, if they do, they won’t follow what I’m trying to say. It’s happened a lot. It will happen again.

But I’m writing. I wrote that day. I’m writing today. Tomorrow I may review my ideas to see if there’s one I can flesh out. The next day, I might edit something and get it to final draft status. But today, I’m just writing.

Here’s to rebuilding the habit.

Posted in Work & Life

Filling a Tool Box

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Have you ever wanted to try something new?

Perhaps a new hobby. A new type of social interaction. A new volunteer opportunity. Even a new career.

If so, you know how it feels to stare down something brand new, something you’ve never engaged with before, and not have a clue what to do next.

So, what do you do? You start gathering information. You begin to evaluate what you need to know just to take the first step.

Some people will quickly jump in as soon as they have that first step, while others will continue to gather information and build a plan. Either way, though, starting requires tools. And starting well requires the right kind of tools.

But what is the best way to gather the right tools?

Before my family went to the mission field, my father built houses. I don’t know if it’s an accurate memory or not (I would have been four or five, and that’s been more than a few years!), but I have this vague mental image of Dad coming home at the end of the day and setting down a tool belt.

Obviously, the belt wouldn’t have had everything he needed for the work he did each day. But, the idea in my head is of him having the most essential tools on him at all times. A hammer. A tape measure. A utility knife of some sort. A level. A square. A pencil or two (I know he always had those on hand!).

When I think of gathering the right tools for any sort of task, I picture that utility belt. And were I to ever pick up any type of woodworking hobby, my father is the first person I’d ask for help in gathering basic tools. While he has a whole shop full of tools that he has collected over a lifetime, I know that he would readily tell me that I didn’t need all of that to get going. He could point me to the handful of core tools that would set me on the right path to building the right skills.

So, the logical choice would be to go talk to Dad, right?

But would I? Or would I instead sit down and Google woodworking? Search shopping sites for the right set of tools and ideas. Hunt down an all-in-one kit that would get me off to a “solid” start. Sounds like a brilliant way to spend a lot of money on things I don’t need. Yet, how often do we do that instead of going to the real people around us who could offer solid, genuine help?

I doubt I’ll ever get into woodworking. But, when I want to do something with my yarn stash, I don’t start with Pinterest or Etsy or even Ravelry. I start by chatting with my daughter and our friend Nora, both well experienced in yarn crafting. Then, we might go to their favorite pattern sources to look for ideas. (Although by now I also have my own favorite, trusted source for crochet patterns!)

When I recently started thinking about dabbling with a different hobby, I got books and supplies as Christmas and birthday gifts. The books, while incredibly helpful for building technique, suggested some pretty high quality, but also very high dollar, supplies. More than I wanted to invest to experiment with the hobby. So, my husband thought to send a message to a friend of ours to ask for suggestions that were solid but more budget-friendly. He came through, and I found quality supplies at a fraction of the cost — as well as some tips that fit my brain’s learning style.

Now expand that idea beyond even hobbies. What do you do if you want to start a new small group? Teach a Bible study? Lead a book club? Start a local scouting chapter or homeschool group?

Yep, you got it. Find someone you trust who can help you fill your tool box.

Over the coming weeks, I would love to share a few of my tool boxes with you. They may be helpful, they may not. But my intention is less to offer you a ready-made tool box and more to help you grow ideas of your own. To share how I’ve filled various tool boxes, where I’ve started, and how I’ve chosen the tools. And yes, to even admit where I’ve messed up and snagged the wrong tools.

Ultimately, I hope it will inspire you to think of tool boxes you’d like to fill and who you might ask for help. Or to take a look at tool boxes you already own and think about how you would recommend good tools to someone else.

Posted in Thoughts from Life, What I'm Learning

Celebrating

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I’m struggling today.

I had a post started, sharing thoughts about something I’d read this morning, but it fell flat. I need to ponder it more, work with it more, figure out how it fits into my life and thoughts and intentions…and actions.

And, to be honest, there’s a bit of melancholy resting on me today. January 1 is just a day on a calendar. We have to rotate it through sometime. Why not today? Throughout history, cultures have always chosen a day to do celebrate the start of a new year. Of a new rotation of opportunity and experience and existence. And celebration is so important. God Himself ordained times of celebration, including a new year celebration, as He set up the structure for the nation of Israel. Celebration is good and helpful.

Yet sometimes it really does just fall flat. Sometimes it really does just feel like it’s an arbitrary day on the calendar, especially after the hard years we’ve walked through lately, one after another.

Sometimes the desire to celebrate is there. But the means to do so? Those aren’t as readily available.

So, we struggle.

I’ll be honest, I don’t want to struggle through 2025. I know there will be ups and downs. There will be sweet times and very hard times. I know this, not because I’m expecting a repeat of the last six years (remember how many people were so ready to be done with 2019 and were fully convinced that 2020 would be better?) but because we live in the real world. There will be births and deaths, joys and heartaches, beginnings and endings.

For the past six years, though, the hard has weighed me down heavily. The negative has made it a challenge to truly celebrate the positive.

So, for this year, I want to learn to celebrate purely. Not to ignore the reality of the negative. Not to shove down the weeping and mourning that will inevitably come. Not to deny the fact that life can be so very hard sometimes. But to decide that I won’t allow those things to keep me from celebrating the good. Because there is good. There’s been good every single year. If I’ve missed it, it’s because I’ve been so focused on the bad. That’s the easy route, to be honest. I want to accept the more challenging route. I want to be able to walk in the bad while still being constantly ready to celebrate the good — even in those instances when the two are walking hand in hand.

I’m struggling today, and I know I’ll struggle many more times in 2025. But I’m also determined to relearn how to celebrate. I’m determined to make that more of my focus than the struggle. Because this life of following Christ and seeing His work in the world around me is worth celebrating.

Posted in Thoughts from Life, What I Do

Editing

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Lately, I’ve carried around thoughts that have been weighing on me for a while. Ideas that I’ve wanted to share but haven’t been sure how to. One day, the thoughts finally flowed. It worked. I was able to tap out hundreds of words. I won’t say it was easy, but it definitely didn’t feel like struggle and strain that had been plaguing me.

That is an oddity in my writing, to be honest. Some of it I can tap out quickly, edit quickly, and then post without concern. Some of it I can tap out quickly, but editing is a different story. It needs to sit and wait at least a day, and sometimes much more. A week or even a month or two. I process by blurting out my thoughts as quickly as they come, but then I am able to prayerfully review, asking the Lord for wisdom, guidance, and clarity as I edit and rewrite.

Some thoughts I tap out quickly then never publish. Others I labor over, starting and then stopping, somehow knowing when it’s finally solid. And then there are the times when the laborious approach means I never get around to finishing at all, which is what I’d feared would be the case with these recent thoughts. Sometimes that’s fine. Other times, it leads me to silence when I should be getting my thoughts out there.

In my younger years, I was a lot quicker to publish than I am these days. I wrote, edited, and then clicked that little button without much thought. Then I hit a stage of life where I doubted everything I wrote. So, even when I wrote and edited, I second guessed whether or not I should publish. More often than not, I never did, even with the most simple of posts.

I’m now coming back to the center of the pendulum swing, sometimes writing quickly and confidently and other times thinking and pondering a little more deeply. Obviously, I’m still learning. There are many things I say poorly. There are things I say that I shouldn’t. And other things that I should say but don’t. But I’m learning.

And I’m always editing. Always.

For today’s post, the question guiding both my writing and my editing is…what is the point? Why am I even writing this? (For the record, that sometimes shuts me down as well — I realize that I’m just jabbering with no real point.) I think the answer is this: our words are important. They matter. They should be shared. But they should all be shared carefully. Even the most mundane of statements needs to be held up against the backdrop of God’s Word.

It all needs editing.

I don’t always run a quick edit on my thoughts before they jump verbally from my mouth. I don’t always edit a text, Discord, or social media message before I hit enter. As a result, I often make huge mistakes despite innocent intentions. I cause hurt when I only wanted to help.

Editing doesn’t always solve that problem, but my goal is that I’ll learn more and more to heeding the Spirit’s guidance in editing every word I say or type. That I will listen to Him first. That I will be His conduit more than just someone who jabbers and writes.

Editing is the best avenue I know to accomplish that. It slows me down and makes me think.

Yes, I think that’s the point today. And it’s why you get this post today instead of the thoughts I’ve written but still need to process. Because editing is always important, and I want to be faithful to edit under the Lord’s guiding hand, whether I’m talking about editing or processing much deeper thoughts.

Posted in Thoughts, What I Do

When I Don’t Know What to Do

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

It’s always amazing to me how, even as we grow, we face similar struggles at each level of growth. There are new dynamics, and old lessons means we have different tools to use as we work through the struggles than we might have in earlier seasons. But, the struggles carry a similarity, allowing us to need reminders of what we’ve learned in the past.

Today is a good example for me. This is another old post, one from over eight years ago. But it was a timely reminder today, one I needed in facing some of the struggles around me right now. I’m thankful both for reminders of growth and reminders of the tools I have in place to handle the things I’m facing today.

Have you ever been pulled from a place of belonging into a phase of uncertainty? From a place of confidence in your skills to a moment of feeling as if you really have nothing to offer? What do you do in those moments?

Hold Loosely

Last week, a sermon illustration reminded me of the importance of holding everything so very loosely. Allowing God to give and take away for His glory. It was not a new concept. I’ve heard it time and time again – and tried to live by it diligently. Yet, while standing in the middle of a long stretch of time in which my confidence has been challenged again and again, God knew I needed the reminder to hold loosely to everything.

So, what do you do when you don’t know what to do? You hold loosely. Surrender. Trust.

Admittedly, I don’t do any of that easily. Especially when my confidence is being stripped. When I feel like I don’t really have a place. When it seems as if I’m not doing anything well – or that I’m outright failing.

But the Lord never promised it would come easily. In fact, He promised suffering. He promised struggle. He promised challenge.

And He promised Himself right in the middle of it.

He Does Best When I Can’t

I know this all seems much more spiritual than practical. But, in truth, it’s very practical. Because what I do – every single aspect of what I do – is riddled with insecurity. I never experience a day when I don’t feel like I am failing in at least one area of life – being a wife or a mom or a pastor’s wife or a teacher or an editor or an employee or a whatever-else-I’m-doing-at-the-moment. Or all of the above.

Only when I hold it all loosely is the Holy Spirit capable of performing the jobs through me. And only then do I see success.

That makes “holding loosely” a very practical part of what I do. Even if it’s a part I forget regularly and have to be reminded of.

Hold loosely, my friend. Be ready to let Christ be the success, not you.

And be ready to remind me of this very thing tomorrow, because I’ll need it!

Posted in What Works for Me

What Works for Me

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I got caught up in a variety of tasks this morning and ran out of writing time. But, in an effort to keep up the habit (more on that to come), I took enough time to review and update another old post to republish and share. So, here you go!

The more I have delved into the worlds of ministry and homeschooling, the more I have seen a certain truth reveal itself: What works for you just might not work for me.

We love to give advice. When someone has a problem, we are quick to share the perfect solution. After all, it worked perfectly for me. Doesn’t that mean it will work perfectly for everyone?

What we forget is that we are not a one-size-fits-all people. We are unique by design. As a result, one solution will not fit every single one of us. In fact, very often one solution will fit, well, one of us.

That produces quite the conundrum. If what works for me may not work for you (and vice versa), then I suppose we can never help one another!

Fortunately, that supposition is far from true. We can help one another. We just have to know how. As we dole out “helpful” advice, the most important thing to remember is that all situations are different. That realization needs to form the foundation for all advice that we give.

So, what do we do with this realization? How can it truly shape the advice we give? Here are some tips I have learned:

Explain why it works for me.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot of reviews, blog posts, and articles that offer information about a product or method. Each time I dive into this style of writing, I try to start with a little “insider” information. I don’t share my life story, but I do give enough information about my circumstances to allow readers to discern how their situation or personality might relate to or differ from mine. They can then make mental adjustments as they read. This can just as easily be accomplished with spoken and informal advice.

Learn to pay attention to how the recipient of the advice is different.

I have learned just how important it is to be personal and relational, truly listening to people and where they are before I dish out advice. (Okay, so I’ve learned how important it is to do this; I’m not always great at following through with it. I’m learning.) Only then can I clearly see the ways in which what works for me needs to be adjusted before the advice can be useful to the recipient.

Don’t take it personally when advice is not taken or does not work.

I am still learning to repeat to myself, “What works for me might not work for them.” It’s not only okay, it’s good.

Receiving Help

But, there is another side to all of this. There is the receiving end. Though many of us prefer to give advice than to receive it, we are often are in need of what others have to share. So, how can we receive help with both wisdom and grace?

Do not take advice at face value.

No successes are accomplished simply by formula – there are always other, often unnoticed, factors involved. What other factors were involved in your friend’s success story? How do those factors relate to your situation? What changes might you need to make to act on the advice you are given?

Determine to prayerfully consider the advice given.

Often we listen with a smile on our faces, respond that it sounds like a good idea, and walk away with no intention of actually following through with the advice. Why? Because we all have that tinge of pride, be it ever so small, that makes us shy away from acting on the advice of others.

We may or may not actually use the advice, but let’s not allow pride to be the reason. Let it be because it really won’t work for us. Prayerfully consider. Hold it up to Scripture. Be willing to consider.

We are a community, whether we like it or not. A community helps. May we be willing to both give and receive with more grace, wisdom, and discernment!

Posted in Work & Life

The Ideal Solution?

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Our cat is a bit of a jerk.

I’ve mentioned this cat before. His name is Monty, short for Monterrey Jack, and he’s orange and white and should be very lovable. We expected him to be. (Someday I’ll tell you about his predecessor, the very lovable Colby Jack, and you’ll understand why we expected it.) But, he’s not. Instead, he’s a jerk.

(For the record, yes, both cats were given cheesy names. Yes, we love cheese. And we’re cheesy. And we have a weakness for orange cats. But I digress.)

Monty has so much personality, and we really do love that cat. But he’s a mess. And his love is on his own terms.

So, back to him being a jerk.

When our oldest daughter graduated from college and moved back home for a time, she brought with her a large black cat named Anubis. Newcomer Nubs (can you tell we like nicknames around here?) got along fine with our other daughter’s cat, a tabby named Rose (who never gets called Rose but instead is referred to by her litany of nicknames, especially Flüffy), but he and Monty did not get along at all. The feud was so great (mostly Nubs terrorizing Monty) that we ended up putting a baby gate up in our bedroom doorway that Monty could go under, but that, at least for a time, blocked Nubs. Our room was Monty’s safe space. We moved his food in there, and he only needed to go out to use the litter box, which was in the laundry room very near our bedroom.

After about 10 months, our daughter and Nubs moved out. And Monty quickly rediscovered the rest of the house. Delighted, we moved his food bowl back to its original location in the bathroom connected to the laundry room — separate from the litter box area, but in the area we had designated the “cat zone” when we first moved in.

But there was a problem. He wouldn’t eat from it. Not unless he was desperate. He would only eat from Flüffy’s bowl. At the other end of the house.

That was kind of funny in and of itself because we’d originally moved both bowls back into that bathroom, since it’s where they were before Anubis moved in. While Flüffy’s bowl was in there, Monty wouldn’t touch it and would only eat out of his own bowl. Flüffy, however, who is a rather anxious cat, wouldn’t go in there to eat at all. So we decided to move her bowl back into our daughter’s room, at which point Monty decided her bowl was the only one he would eat out of. (Remember my reference to him being a jerk? Yeah. And yes, there is a point to all of this, so bear with me.)

Now, having Monty’s bowl in the laundry room was ideal for us. It kept the bowl from being under our feet (its location in our bedroom was rather awkward), and it was in a convenient location for him. But he just wouldn’t eat out of it. Meanwhile, poor Flüffy was starving to death because chunky Monty was eating all her food!

In an effort to solve the problem, we moved Monty’s food bowl back to our bedroom. But even that didn’t work because at this point it was really more about reasserting his alpha status than anything else. So, we finally put both bowls together in our daughter’s bedroom so that both cats could eat.

Not necessarily ideal, at least from our perspective, but it worked. Of course, that brings us to an important realization (Yes, I’m finally getting to the point!): an ideal solution is only ideal if it actually works. In this case, what we thought was ideal actually held no practical benefit whatsoever because it simply didn’t work.

We get caught in that trap a lot, don’t we? We read books, listen to podcasts, or attend conferences about success and make decisions based on what the experts say about ideal solutions, whether regarding our personal lives or professional success. There is often great information there, and it’s frequently solid enough to indicate that it can help meet the need. So, we work to shape our practical to fit the ideal solution. But that’s backwards. The true solution is to refine and shape the ideal until it fits with our practical reality.

Solutions only work when we take the ideal ideas and process them until they become practical ideas. In our case, the ideal was to get Monty’s food (and Flüffy’s as well), into the cat area in the laundry room. The practical need was to provide nourishment for our cats. The ideal had to be reworked and shaped until it met the practical.

Is there something in life you are trying to shape to fit the ideal? Maybe it’s time to turn it around. Perhaps the better solution is to reshape the ideal to fit your life. Only then will the ideal solution truly become the practical solution.

Posted in What I'm Learning, Work & Life

Personal Superhero

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

People who write for a living are superheroes.

I enjoy writing. It is nourishing to me to take the thoughts in my head and turn them into tangible concepts. And I have long had stories floating around in my head that I’d love to get out someday.

I also do want people to read what I write, mainly because I feel that writing is my strongest avenue for drawing people to Truth. I’m not always right and I know I don’t represent Christ with perfection by any stretch of the imagination. But if it is at all possible for me to help others see Him more clearly through the practice of writing, I want to do it!

In our society, though, to truly make an impact as a writer, you have to “sell” yourself. You have to draw attention and make people want to read what you have to write. That’s the part I’m horrible at. I don’t push my writing. I don’t make sure that my content is right there in front of everybody, encouraging them to see and read. I prefer to be behind the scenes in real life, and that’s no different in writing.

So on days like today when the thoughts just aren’t flowing and the writing hits roadblocks, I can’t imagine having to both write and promote myself as a competent writer. It makes me wonder what the point is. Why do I even write, anyway?

I don’t think I’m alone in thoughts like these, and not just about writing, either. I think there’s a lot of stuff we just never do in life because we go down the “why bother?” trail. We hit a bad day and suddenly see all of the things we’re not good at. So, we decide we shouldn’t bother even with the things we are good at (probably because we no longer feel good at them).

Because living life — truly living it — is scary. That’s just the reality.

I don’t like scary. I like safe. I like confident. I like to know that something I start is going to work out from beginning to end. I don’t like to invest in things that may not succeed. (For the record, some days are overwhelming enough that this even involves investing in mundane things like cooking lunch. Yes, I’m weird. Yes, today is one of those days, and it has shown in my utter lack of productivity. I’m not sure how I’m even forming coherent words at all! But I digress.)

Today is one of those no-flow, roadblock kind of days. And I almost just didn’t bother, which is honestly my typical response when I hit days like today. I almost didn’t write. I put it off for a while, filling my time with piddly, unproductive things instead of moving forward well with my day. Which means I not only wasn’t writing, I also wasn’t doing anything else good and productive and useful.

Because that’s easier and safer than diving in and trying to do something that I may not be able to complete. It’s easier than failing. It’s easier to just not do than to question whether or not doing it is worth the effort.

I didn’t punt today, though. I sat down and did. It took me a lot longer than it should have, and I wasted most of my morning in the delay. But I did it. (Oh, and lunch worked itself out, too, but that was because my wonderful hubby jumped in with an awesome suggestion. Thank you, Hubby!)

It makes me feel just a bit like a superhero. Not a superhero who can tackle the battles of the world but one who can persevere over my own struggles. An ordinary but very, very personal superhero.

I have a feeling you have days like this, too. But you’re doing life anyway. You’re pushing forward. You’re tackling the scary. That makes you a superhero, too. One who is victorious over the ordinary that feels so overwhelming.

The results don’t have to be great. Goodness knows this blog post isn’t great. But I’m doing it. And I’m publishing it before I can talk myself out of it. And I’m encouraging you to go ahead and do, too.

Be a superhero for yourself today.