Outside The Comfort Zone

It finally happened, after nearly three months of following a fairly consistent blogging schedule (longer posts on Monday, approximations of poetry on Wednesdays and a slightly rubbish doodle on Fridays) I’ve managed to fall behind.

I’m not worried, I regularly disappeared for weeks on end in 2016 and, nearly three full months in, 2017 is already looking like a significantly better blogging year. Not necessarily a better year in any other respect, although 2016 is oft much maligned as the ‘worst year ever’ and certainly Brexit and Trump made it a pretty bad year politically and lots of celebrities dying made it bad year for people who like celebrities, and I wouldn’t say 2016 was a vintage year for me personally because it wasn’t, but I’d be hard-pressed to say that it was manifestly worse than 2015 in that respect. So far 2017, while seemingly better on the ‘celebrities dying’ front (as far as I’m aware), is still suffering from the ridiculousness of Donald over there and the imminent triggering of Article 50 over here. On a personal level, there is much to be optimistic about but little in the way of the ‘realisation’ of any of that, so, while 2017 has not been significantly worse than 2015 or 2016, I’m not sure I could claim it’s been much better. But it’s early days and there’s the potential for some personal growth in the next few months.

But the last few weeks have been arduous and I’ve been maintaining a blogging schedule that is reasonably consistent against the backdrop of a job that is, at times, more than a little challenging. I like a challenge, I don’t want to be bored at work, but ‘challenging’ can be synonymous with ‘time-consuming’.

So missing a couple of scheduled blog posts is not the end of the world.

Although it’s a little ironic, perhaps, that yesterday’s post was going to be the fifth part of my “Stuff I Used To Do But Don’t Do Anymore” series and it was going to focus on how I don’t really do any writing these days. And for that post to work I was going to have to offer the caveat that I don’t really write anymore except for this blog. So missing two posts might be my ill-conceived attempt to add gravitas to an argument that doesn’t really hold up under any scrutiny. Because clearly writing for this blog does count so I do still write quite regularly. Nonetheless I have some compelling arguments as to why I can still claim to be a less than active writer so stay tuned for that piece of illuminating prose, which should hit the blogoshpere next Monday in lieu of yesterday.

The other post I missed in my schedule was my weekly foray into the world of doodling or moodling as Haylee from the awesome ‘Aloada Bobbins’ likes to describe it, for I have essentially decided to dedicate my ‘Artists Corner’ feature to participating in her Moodle Army Challenge.

And it would be a shame to miss out on last week’s challenge so I’m posting my effort today instead of Friday because I haven’t yet invented time-travel and I can’t go back and post it then.

I fully expect to invent time-travel soon. Indeed my future self-appeared to me just last night and told me that I will. I’m quite excited by that on three counts – firstly that it will be amazing to be able to travel back and forth in time and see the past as it really was and to experience the future as it will be. Secondly I’ll be able to see the next few Star Wars films before they’re even made. Thirdly, having seen my future self, it’s fairly clear that I’m going to make for a very attractive older man.

There is a chance that the visitation from my future self might have been a dream, but I’m choosing to accept it as reality.

Anyway last week’s Moodle Army challenge was to ‘STEP OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE!’

Friday, the day I meant to write this post, was actually a significant anniversary in life. It was twenty years since something quite big happened to me and I was tempted to tell the tale on this very blog. To do so however, would definitely mean stepping outside my comfort zone. It’s not a time I often speak of and I’ve never written about it, so, although I think it would make for a fairly good story and I might well write about it on here in the future, current time pressures meant that I couldn’t write about it on the anniversary itself.

Which is ok, because we should never be defined by dates.

Although my birthday is coming up and obviously we all need to acknowledge that because it’s important that lots of people wish me Happy Birthday on the day itself.

Instead I’ve chosen, in my inimitable artistic style, to represent someone stepping outside of their comfort zone in the most literal sense I could come up with: