Cinderblock Wall on a Treadmill

The title of this post pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling the past couple of days. There are times when I feel like I’m pushing things along and they’re just rolling along right in front of me, making progress, and responding well to the amount of effort I’m exerting. In a way, it’s kind of like the coffee bean grinder I just bought to be part of my morning coffee ritual. I know that if I put a certain measured quantity of beans into the grinder, that after exerting a certain level of effort and spending a certain amount of energy, I’ll be rewarded with a nice pile of evenly ground beans, that will turn into a nice cup of coffee, like the one I’m drinking right now.

There are other times, like now, when I feel like the level of effort I’m exerting is completely disproportional to the level of progress that’s being made available for me to enjoy. It seems to me like I’m pushing against a cinderblock wall, mounted on a treadmill that is configured at its maximum incline. I realize that expecting life to be an evenly proportioned balance between effort and reward is unrealistic, yet I still can’t help but feel frustrated at times like this.

My tendency during these times is, rather than back off and let things run their course, to ratchet up the level of effort and intensity that I apply to the activities that I feel should be moving forward, faster, hoping that the added effort helps push them through whatever barriers they’re running up against at the time. This probably helps me to feel like I have at least some control over the outcome. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.

Writing this entry, I do think back to being on vacation just a couple of weeks ago and taking a very different approach. At the time, taxes were due, and I actually backed off a step or two during the extension filing process. To my pleasant surprse, things ended up going more smoothly than I expected.

I think that, in a way, it was easier for me to back off then, since my levels of tension were lower. This made it easier for me to be aware of what was going on, aware of my attendant feelings, and aware of approaches that were available to me, that were different than my instinctive approach, which is to keep directing energy and effort toward whatever it is I am trying to control.

Right now, I have all my energy and effort directed at the figurative cinderblock wall at the top of the incline of the treadmill. I’m glad I wrote this entry, as it sparked the memory of doing things a little bit differently when it came to taxes on vacation. As a result, I was also able to do things just a little bit better. The challenge now is to apply this approach to a collection of circumstances, that are happening within the confines of daily life at home, rather than on vacation.