Benefits of a Daily Practice

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene

Ways in which having a daily, obligatory practice helps me:

• If I’m tired or sleepy, I find the strength to get up and get to work.

• Once in a while I create a drawing or writing that inspires me to create a more elaborate work.

• It counteracts 7 years of inaction.

• It makes me feel disciplined.

• It tells me I can achieve any goals I set.

• It tells me I can keep promises to myself. (It’s so much easier being responsible with others.)

• It provides space for thinking.

• It activates creativity.

• It is a way to practice spirituality.

• It helps me find time, space and energy to work after working at my day job.

• It helps me develop ideas to use later.

• It puts me in touch with myself.

• It helps me disconnect from work and other worries.

• It makes me feel accountable.

My day job truly takes all out of me. I work all day, with few breaks. There’s always so much to do. I know it’s really me who does this to myself. I bring the obsession of the artist with me into anything I do. So if I have to recruit 100 students to join a program for the summer, I can’t rest until I see every spot filled. Numbers often obsess me because I am always afraid to make a mistake. When I was in school, I would know how to do the math problems, but then I would make a small mistake that destroyed my work. I don’t think I ever totally got over it.

And these days, I work with budgets, with infinite numbers of numbers that both pleasure my mind and drive me mad. I’m constantly checking each sum. I am eternally grateful for spreadsheet columns that add themselves!

So at home, my impulse is to collapse and watch anything that makes me forget. I’m so glad I don’t use alcohol or drugs, because I now understand how someone would so easily develop a habit. And like any bad habit, I regret it later when I realize how much time and life I have wasted in front of a screen.

Now that I have a studio, and that I have imposed on myself the daily practice of drawing and writing, I am rescuing some of that otherwise wasted time. And it feels so much better.

I chose to draw Mary Magdalene because I really wanted to develop this blog in any way I could. As someone who wrote an about.com blog in the past, and actually at one point achieved 2,000,000 views per month, I know that I don’t really follow the rules here as much as I should. I write in my own voice and go off topic. But it is a daily effort, and I need to be flexible with myself.

I hope that some of what I publish here is of value, and that it shares inspiration to also get up and work on your projects and dreams even when tired and even when you have worked all day at your day job.

I hope one day human beings will be able to pursue their passions and habilities without having to sacrifice life, time and youth to survival. There is nothing better than working all day on that for which you feel passion and full joy. For now, I’m looking for ways to ameliorate the effects of day jobs on the creative soul. And in the process of sharing, I help my own soul.