It has been nine days since I’ve committed to this challenge. Many articles state that it takes 30 days to build a habit. I missed posting on day eight to file taxes. Therefore days eight and nine will be my personal reflections on what I felt when building this writing habit.
Prompts work but I have trouble articulating what I want to say
At the beginning of this challenge, I committed to using writing prompts. My reason being was to build a foundation and get comfortable doing these posts daily. Seven out of four-hundred prompts have been used. I’m encountering a problem in using the prompts. I don’t think I’m expressing myself well when writing on a topic.
In my previous post, I know that I’m writing as a form of anger management. However, I find I’m policing what I want to say. It feels like I’m not saying what I really feel about the topics. The topics I write about assume life experience or a certain goal to be achieved. The goal is just to make a writing habit, but should it feel so boring?
I know it’s my issue if I’m not feeling the topic that I’m writing about, yet I can’t keep jumping to a new set of prompts out of boredom. I need to commit to these chosen prompts, even when it feels forced.
I’m writing for SEO instead of for People…that’s a problem.
I write these pieces on a personal blog before posting them here to medium. There are tools that are used to enhance SEO(Search Engine Optimization) that offer prompts to have my work found through search engines. In writing to SEO instead of people, it feels as if what I’m writing is disingenuous.
I have to be honest, I attempted writing to escape the drudgery labour. The tedium of travelling, clocking in, looking busy, meetings, networking etc has always made keeping employment difficult for me. It is only in the last year of working remotely have I felt ‘ok’ with my employment. Given that I used to work in industries that would have exposed me to Covid before this job, I am grateful for not being exposed. Yet, I feel a sense of survivor’s guilt for working from home.
In my country concept, the essential service jobs are done by the Collective Black/Afric(k)an Diaspora and Citizens of Global Majority. Having recently gotten out of foodservice and general labour at the start of the lockdown, I feel a sense of shame. I wasn’t risking my life making people’s food or moving slabs of metal anymore, but somebody else would be.
That’s someone who’s probably at the mercy of public transit and minimum wage. That’s a hell that I wouldn’t wish upon even the most obnoxious gaping assholes one will encounter in the working world. Yet I often find myself brooding and depressed during an eight-hour shift.
While I do work in tech, it’s low-level admin and ticketing. Resetting passwords, unlocking accounts, requisitioning equipment. It’s repetitive and also in service to fossil fuel extraction. I am associated with the oil and gas industry, even as an IT contractor.
A new job offer is starting in the next couple of weeks. Better pay, but it’s in an office. I will have to be at the mercy of public transit again.
Building these habits to escape employment
With the above in mind, I have a better understanding of why I want to create. I need to escape this life. The reason I haven’t escaped is that I would turn to entertainment instead of building. I can’t afford to be complacent it will only make me more miserable.
I am scared to commit, but it is necessary. Finishing this challenge first, it will give me a framework to finish other pursuits. Full employment and retirement will not be an option in my lifetime. And I can’t pretend otherwise.
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