Paralyzed with Ideas
I haven’t touched my sewing machine in months. I haven’t written a short story in even more months. I haven’t painted anything (except for the fun doodle I made at Victoria’s birthday craft night). And it’s true, I haven’t had much time to devote to my creative hobbies- but when I do have free time, I’ve been thinking to myself “oh I should paint or sew” and then I just don’t.
I don’t know why. There’s plenty of ideas I have. I have a Pinterest board of craft to-dos; I have a TikTok folder that serves the same function. I have two full bags of scrap fabric and things to upcycle. I never even made part of Derek’s birthday gift, and they turned 23 a week ago now.
I’m definitely not in a rut or having creative block- like I said, I have ideas, I just don’t execute them. It’s like, pure laziness. When I update my blog, it’s kind of easy? All I’m doing is typing. I’m watching a YouTube video as we speak (it’s a room makeover, my favorite kind of video to watch). It only requires mental effort. But still, if I can manage this little hobby, why can’t I manage the rest?
Why am I so lazy?
As a kid I was super creative, as most kids are. I played a lot of sports, and I was usually hanging from a tree with my cousins or my best friend. I have a lot of energy, and I channeled it towards having fun. These days, it seems like the little energy I have is being fully used to take me to work or take me to school. The couple hours a week I’ve had to myself recently (the hours that I don’t use sleeping or cooking) are basically just dedicating to going on my phone or my iPad. In my defense, I did need to do a lot of catch up on my YouTube subscriptions- but that’s not a very strong defense, is it?
I do have a big phone problem. It didn’t use to be so bad, but in the last few months, maybe closer to the last year, I’ve been really into Instagram; I think the addiction heightened when I deleted TikTok from my phone and discovered Reels. I have an hour screen time limit set that I usually go well over everyday. Its algorithmic nature got to me- the never-ending scroll almost always has something that’s going to make me laugh. The annoying thing is that it’s always something stupid; something you couldn’t imagine “explaining to a Victorian child” or something that’s brainrot-esque: not classic brainrot, but definitely still something unintelligible.
I’ve thought about deleting Instagram off my phone too, but it is a main source of communication for me and some people, and a main source of picking up shifts at work. A couple years ago, I unfollowed all the celebrities or influencers I like. I just follow my friends and family now (and the Yankees). It’s nice to use Instagram solely as a means to keep up with friends and family- I’m the kind of person to watch every story and listen to all the notes and scroll through every carousel.
I literally just picked up my phone and started scrolling on Instagram.
Okay, this is what I’m gonna do: right now, my IG screen-time is at one hour and 16 minutes today. It’s about to hit 6:00pm. Before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to devote an hour and 16 minutes to sewing something or painting something. I think I’ll do both actually. On the bright side, I finished reading Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry this morning. I gave it ★ ★ ★ ★. At least two of my hobbies are thriving! The hobbies I wanted to dedicate myself to this year are reading, blogging, theater-going, sewing, painting, ballet, and (for the season) softball. I haven’t been able to get myself to ballet recently because it’s too far of a drive to justify the gas these days. But, I can still practice at home! I also want to starting running, because eventually in the coming months I’ll start training to run next year’s Princess 5k or 10k at Disney! Depending on what princess is the theme of which run. For now, I’ll just go outside and give myself the motivation to paint while the sun goes down, then maybe I’ll sew something.
I kind of need to do my homework too. That can be a later problem. Once I’ve passed this creative curse I’ve been afflicted with. As for this Instagram problem, I’m not sure what I’ll do, because I don’t want to get rid of it entirely. I work a double tomorrow though, so maybe that screen time will go down by miles. I’ll keep you updated.
From, Willianny
