49: Time to pause

Lately I, like many other people in the world, are under lock down and social distance order, so I have been staying at home and spending a lot of time with my kid. This is due  to coronavirus, as we all know. I guess that it is once in lifetime event, because in my memory of SARs and Swine flu, I do not recall having a situation even close to this time.

However, somehow I consider it is lucky.

Right near the lock down began, I experienced some devastating events. Probably not a big deal to most people, but it was really devastating for me. I felt completely defeated and giving up. The feeling was like, you are in a dark room, trying to escape, you walk and walk, find a door, open it excitedly, and then realize you are back to the starting point of the dark room.

Couple weeks ago, I started taking MasterClass, which personally think it’s very worthy. I did some exercises based on the instruction. Oh they are terrible, and I will not dare putting them online. One of the exercise was writing a short story based on a folktail with a twist. I did it twice. In both attempts, the story was pretty dark and very sad.

Today was a sunny day, and I was laying down with my little one, in a tent, setup in my backyard, because we couldn’t go anywhere anyway. I decided to tell her the story I made up. But in the end, I told her a different ending, which still sounded a little scary. But the moment I changed the ending, I realized that my story suddenly became much better. Even my little one asked where chapter two is.

All I do differently is simply changing the ending to a way that makes me wonder, “and then what happen“, which are the 4 most important words, based on Neil Gaiman.

This also makes me realize that the door I have been chasing does not really have to be the only solution. I could still stay in the dark room, but I can brighten up the room, or I can look for a window. This somehow, rings a bell from reading somewhere in “Designing Your Life“.

Therefore, I decide to pause this blog for a long time, because I have found a solution on what I really need to do. I have to do that thing.

I will be back in a year or so.

… To be continued …