If you’re making things, you might find this interesting. I wrote to Chris after I’d watched it to tell him how it had helped me and I got a lovely email back in response (wasn’t expecting one, I really did just want him to know, but it was a nice surprise, that’s for sure). (I should also say, I found it via Coastalwatch who do a top ten things in surfing every week, which is always great).

Back to Chris. He says a couple of things here that really resonated with me:

Anything that is worth pursuing is going to require us to suffer, just a little bit.

Pain is a shortcut to mindfulness (I’m actually thinking about giving birth when I bounce off this one).

And he talks about, Something you are forced to earn.

Also there, somewhere, he says, I gave a piece of myself.

They’re all things that made me think of writing, although I’m sure they could be applied to just about anything, if you’re doing it for the process, the doing not the getting (which isn’t to say that getting goals aren’t important, because they have a place, too).

Of course, the risks in writing are less dramatic than getting hypothermia, they’re usually more internal. But for some reason, recognising you’ve given a piece of yourself helps take away some of the fear involved. Really, what more can you do than that? You’ve done your best, so at some point you also have to say fuq it and just let it go.

Which leads me to the other thing that Chris talks about, the part I loved the most: the JOY he gains from doing something. Goes around, comes around :) You learn from the doing, and also from the connections you make.

Anyway. See what you think.