Wite-Out Control

I tend to plan anything involving reading and writing now. I block out times to read books. I’ve been aiming to read an hour from an eBook or an actual book. I also aim to listen to at least an hour of an audiobook. Reading is always a great way to help our writing. And soon, I’m going to be reading one of five books focused on writing. This week by the time I get through my days, I’m SO ready for bed that my reading times have fallen by the wayside. There have been many little x’s in my planner or a note of Thurs. to make it up tomorrow. The other thing there is a lot in my planner is wite-out.

In many ways, I have become best friends with my wite-out. I use it weekly, if not daily. I’m constantly changing something around from the week before where I get overzealous and start planning out what I should write when. My results list and my to-do lists are always changing so that I can accomplish my goals. They are also changing because I don’t want to burn myself out. Between life and my dreams, sometimes it can be too much, and it has taken me a long time to break the cycle of thinking, ‘I need to make that up tomorrow.’ It turns into let me go back to that checkmark if I can now. 

So I tend to write down everything in there right now. Next week, I will write these things down in the gratitude journal since it has a space for goals and to-do lists. I have a feeling I’m going to get back into traditional journaling again SO much this year. Plus, it will free up my poor bogged down planner from the other daily chores and whatnot I need to accomplish that day and appointments for my father, uncle, and me. I have always used my planner this way. And since 2019, when I realized the glory of planning with stickers, planning is honestly an act of self-care at this point.

In 2020 it was SO annoying because I kept changing things up, and my inner control freak was not happy. Toward the end of last year, I tried to schedule things, but I went into this weird seasonal depression slump at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Ever since reaching Rachel Hollis’s second and third self-help books and attending a Jess Ekstrom seminar, I have felt more empowered than ever. I feel like I’m slowly getting my life back in control by planning my days around writing. However, I did not realize that by doing that, and getting lost in what I’m typing, wite-out has become my newfound bestie.

Wite-out for an inner control freak seems like an oxymoron. I think the glory of wite-out is the fact that we can change on a daily basis, and that NOT be a bad thing. Every day we should be growing and putting in the work to be a better person than we were yesterday. One of my favorite quotes, that I come back to ALL THE TIME, is when Adam Baldwin said, “The only person you can be better than is the person you were yesterday,” at the second Atlanta Comic-Con. That piece of his panel has stuck with me even on my worst days. I might not have always been able to remember that and practice it, but ultimately it’s true.

So yeah, wite-out. Wite-out allows me to get rid of things I’ve written down twice because they are that important to me. Wite-out enables me to get rid of something altogether. And sometimes, I don’t bother witing it out because I’m going to do it the next day. The difference between making something up and perseverance is knowing that you don’t HAVE to make it up. You WANT to make it up in some way or some fashion. I want to sit down for two hours and write instead of one if I did not get to the day before. Unless the day has drained from everything I’m juggling, I want to read an extra hour on some days. I want to do these things because I’m passionate about them. Exercise is not in that ball field, and I might explain why later in another post one day. 

Regardless, I’m realizing, FINALLY, that sometimes change is actually not ALL bad. I know. This lesson is something that most people learn when they are much younger, but I feel it’s a lesson that we forget as we age. This lesson is one that we have to teach ourselves repeatedly at times. I know I have. Fear has a way of entering our thoughts and getting to us in ways that leave us believing change is awful. We should merely stay in our comfort zone and be content. I know that sarcasm is hard to read, so let me explain that was SUPER sarcastic. 

My change is realizing that much like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding believes that putting Windex on anything can fix it, I feel that wite-out can fix just about anything as long as we’re willing to focus on where we are and where we’re going in life. When in doubt, put a little wite-out on it! Let the change wash over you. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy your life afterward.