Ifs, Buts, and Maybes

Sometimes, with the sheer amount of procrastination I manage to fit into each day, I wonder if the universe will have to resort to extreme measures to get me to take action. I hope not. Yet, I can't help but be inspired by people who have been dealt a raw deal and still manage to get up (figuratively only, for many of them) and push (literally) themselves to success.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a silly reality TV show I was watching called Britain's Missing Top Model. The show was silly, but the lovely women competing for the title were anything but. I was convinced wheelchair-bound Sophie Morgan would win the show, sitting as she was head and shoulders above the other contestants in terms of perspective and political ambition. She didn't win, unfortunately, but she didn't let that stop her.

What the show didn't reveal about Sophie is that she is an artist, with, I think, an enormous amount of talent. She's used her stint on this reality show to launch her career in fine art and design.

But it was the pictures of Sophie trekking the Himalayas that really floored me. Here's a woman who's prepared to try and accomplish anything she sets her mind to, and somehow she'll find a way around the obstacles. And have a fabulous time doing it.

At the end of this post I've embedded a video of Sophie speaking at a TED event in Canada.

Another remarkable person I've come across recently is Sean Stephenson, author of Get Off Your But. At that first link you can watch a video of one of Sean's motivational talks and it's well worth it. Sean was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, is three feet tall, and in a wheelchair.

So. My "But" at the moment is having to wait until after lunch, when my son has his nap, before I can really get stuck in to any writing. You know that time of day - slump time. The last thing I feel like doing is concentrating; that nap is looking good. A few years ago I made an accidental discovery that a really excellent time of day for me to write is first thing in the morning, before I do anything else, before I've even properly woken up. I'm finding it hard to let go of that now. I'm woken up by a bouncy toddler every morning and that's my attention taken up until lunch, and as much as I would love to sit down and write it's just not going to happen in the morning.

So here I am sitting bleary-eyed at nearly 11PM, going back to my previous "best" time to write: late at night. But I'm also hoping I can embrace the midday writing hour more fully and find some way to be really productive during that time that my child magically gives me to myself each day. After all, I'd really like to be sleeping right now. Good night.