Word Count

Two and a half years ago, as I was finishing up my second masters degree, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I finally finished and had more time. What was missing when I was consumed with all the homework was writing and relationships. I was in short supply of quality time for both. I locked that in as a point of focus, knowing well what a lack of both was doing to me.

In 2013 I sought those two goals by putting a number on them. I decided that I would write 75 blog posts, write and mail 25 letters, and read 25 books. I reported on my progress monthly on this blog. I successfully completed each goal and reaped the benefits of living purposefully.

In 2014 I counted nothing. I made no such public statements about my path and progress. I took my foot off the pedal of personal pressure to do what I knew I wanted to do. The result: 40 blog posts, 18 books, and zero letters.

I'm going back to the numbers. I felt stifled by the constraints I placed on myself towards the end of 2013. In 2014, I drowned from the freedom. I feel a moral lesson coming on here about rules and biblical guidelines, but I'll have to save that for another post.

The number this year is 13,000. Every month, my goal is to write 13,000 words. I know who I want to be, and I'm not him right now. I want to be a writer, I want to be a friend, and I want to be a follower of Christ. Writers write. Friends keep in contact. Christians pray. Between my prayers, my blog posts, and my letters, I'm aiming for 13,000 total words each month.

13,000. That's approximately 7 blog posts, 20 typed prayers, and two letters. It is manageable. It is reasonable. I have found myself entirely incapable of the manageable and reasonable the past few months.

I have heard some say that in disciplining yourself to do something, by forcing yourself and putting yourself on a schedule or a timeline and gutting it out, doing the act when you don't necessarily feel like it, it takes the heart out of it. It doesn't really count. It's unhealthy and dangerous, because you are just going through the motions and not really doing the thing that you are forcing yourself to do.

Those people are wrong.

Here's what I know. To be who I want to be is a daily battle, a constant struggle, where the victory is sweet but the path is thorny. Without a purposeful plan and imposed self-discipline, I am too weak not to slide into mediocrity. And the mediocre is so grossly unfulfilling that a pattern of accepting it turns me from fighting for who I want to be to fighting not to hate who I am. That fight, my friends, is dark and lonely. It's a foolish fight to fight.

Flannery O'Connor once wrote in a letter, "Don't let anyone or anything cut into your time with words." I'm taking her advice, 13,000 at a time.

Happy New Year, everyone.