Yesterday a new friend and I were having lunch, and she asked, “What kind of writing do you enjoy doing for fun?” The sad truth is that my personal writing has languished in the past year and a half. I was laid off from a company I worked for for almost 19 years, redefining myself professionally and searching for a new job in a challenging economy. Writing took a back burner to other more pressing concerns.
Yet even through those challenges, I managed to stay focused on another area of my life – running. Rather than focusing on training for long distance events like I had done in the past, I began to focus instead on running a short distance every day, at least a mile. First I did a 40-day running streak, then 180 days, and now I’m on day 332 of a streak.
There is power in the simple act of doing something over and over every day. A few days ago, I saw a new streak I want to pursue – #100HappyDays. It’s a challenge to submit a picture every day of something that makes you happy.
From the website:
“We live in times when super-busy schedules have become something to boast about. While the speed of life increases, there is less and less time to enjoy the moment that you are in. The ability to appreciate the moment, the environment and yourself in it, isthe base for the bridge toward long-term happiness of any human being.”
I will use this challenge to restart my writing, using the photo I post each day as a prompt to put some words on “paper.”
As I’ve found in my running, doing something every day takes on its own momentum. Even when I don’t feel like running, the motivation not to go back to zero consecutive days is more powerful. If I can write a little, every day, for #100HappyDays, maybe I can reclaim writing for fun in my life.
Writer on the Wall 
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