‘...it occurs to me that there is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much. It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression. Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.’
~ from May Sarton’s ‘Journal of a Solitude’ (1973)
♥
I came across this passage this afternoon and oh yes, I know
what she’s talking about.
I’ve started studying again, this time as a postgraduate student (I’m doing* a Creative Writing Master of Research: quite exciting). I’ll need to learn how to make realistic writing plans over the next few months. I tend to be ridiculously ambitious and then beat myself up later for not achieving the impossible.
I’ve started studying again, this time as a postgraduate student (I’m doing* a Creative Writing Master of Research: quite exciting). I’ll need to learn how to make realistic writing plans over the next few months. I tend to be ridiculously ambitious and then beat myself up later for not achieving the impossible.
*Note: ‘“doing” a Creative Writing Master of Research’
sounds a bit clumsy, but I thought “undertaking” made it sound a bit grandiose.
Ah, language: it's a tricky thing. And here I am, trying to dance with it.
(Picture taken one hot summer night this July.)
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