Stoking the Fire

It's taken a while to get used to writing posts on a regular basis, but I think I'm finally back into the swing of things. Last weekend I was supposed to finally paint property Charlie’s vacant apartment. I had Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and Monday afternoon to get things done. I figured that was all the time I would need.

On Saturday morning I couldn’t get out of bed in time. On Sunday it was the same thing. Monday came, and I was determined to get at least SOME painting done. After work, I went over there and finally tried out the Flexio 570. I love that thing. I only got about an hour’s worth of painting done before I felt tired, but I knew it was important to get the process going. On Tuesday, my bank job boss Eddie downloaded the wand. It was like a sign that Tuesday was the day! I played hookie and, by 12:31pm, the vacant apartment was painted! I stood in the middle of the living room and reflected on what I had done. It only took a total of 4 hours to paint the entire apartment, but due to my jobs, the Nigeria trip, and most importantly a lack of motivation, it took two months to get it done. A lack of motivation. Me? How is that possible?

Before

One coat of paint afterwards... and it took 11 seconds

 Motivation is like a fire that needs to be stoked every day. For a long time, I always thought that motivation in real life was the same as it is in the movies. Ivan Drago kills Apollo Creed in the ring. Rocky Balboa ventures into the woods, plays some music, and trains every day for months to some good 90s workout music. He gets in the ring and beats Ivan Drago. But I’m sure, in real life, Rocky woke up on some of those mornings and didn’t do shit. Maybe he felt like reading a book or having a sex day with Adrianne. Maybe he wanted to spend the morning scratching his balls like I do. Maybe he woke up and stayed in bed on some of those days, wondering whether it’s worth risking his life to get in a ring just to avenge the death of a guy who shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place. The point is that life is not like the movies. No matter how badly I want to get something done, sometimes there’s just no motivation to do it. And that’s okay. It’s called being a human being. During the two months I tried to get the vacant apartment painted, I would make a plan to do it on a certain day. When I couldn’t get the job done on that day, I would beat myself up over it and would spend the next few days in a foul mood. Instead of all that, I could have just accepted that I didn’t get it done, pick another day, and try again. Out of those days, how many of those was spent beating myself up over the fact that I’m not Superman? Far too many to count.

I’m sure there are those that could get the job done faster. There are those that can do it better. But I’m not them. I’m Roger Dodger, and sometimes I feel like resting. Sometimes I feel like staying in bed on a Saturday morning and watching old episodes of the Simpsons. The two fulltime jobs take a lot out of me, and I’m not talking about physically. If I’m retired and it takes me two months to paint an apartment, then there’s a big problem. But taking some time to myself on a Saturday or Sunday morning? That’s okay. My ambition will still be there on Monday.

P.S.: The Flexio 570 is great, but I’ll need the other spray canister that is used for trim. It’s difficult to get trim with the regular paint sprayer attachment without going over the blue tape.

P.P.S.: The next step is the cleanup, which is much more difficult and annoying. I have to rip out the carpets and all the garbage in the apartment and dump it in a rented U-Haul truck. Then I have to take the truck to the batcave so I can remove the over 7 years of garbage I’ve accumulated there in preparation for the basement apartment. Slowly but surely, it’s all coming together.