How Do You Roll?

​Thanks to our flood of three months ago, we’re in the middle of redoing the basement to be a TV and game room. It has to have lots (I mean lots!) of storage for Peter’s books and games. It has to have open space enough for Peter’s game day set up with three 6’ x 3’ tables and chairs. It has to have comfortable seating for TV watching for adults and children. And, I want to love how it all looks. A tall order, but we’ve made great progress. 

​The new vinyl plank flooring looks like a warm, medium brown hardwood. A thick wool rug in an oriental design warms things up even further. Light grey walls and white woodwork look clean and attractive. White Ikea bookcases with glass doors, put in as many places as possible, look neat and clean. A wall-mounted TV leaves more floor space. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to corral and hide all those cables and wires.

Ummm…  I’m not sure how to do that. ​ It leaves me feeling a bit like this little fellow to the right. 

But before I get further into that, let’s get to the point of this blog. Yes, this blog does have a point, and that is, that I’ve realized there are two ways I’ve gotten things done over the years.
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The first was to decide what I wanted to do, make a plan and then rush through it to completion. I was motivated by fear, most particularly the fear of not enough. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough energy, not enough ability to create whatever it was the way I really wanted it. The result being that I often settled for “good enough” in what I created.

The second way was to decide what I wanted to do and carefully do my homework, researching and planning.  This process was akin to priming the pump. Once the pump was primed, I released my hold on the process and allowed the project to move at its own speed, unfolding one step at a time. A little bit of guidance received here, a synchronicity there and the end result often looked very different from the original plan. Yet  I was delighted with the outcome everytime.

The two processes are not unlike traveling on a river in a boat. You can paddle furiously along, not understanding the current that carries you, believing you won’t move unless you work hard, and exhaust yourself with your efforts. You arrive at your destination tired and anxious. You don’t appreciate the journey or enjoy the process. Or, you can trust that you will be supported, put the paddle away and allow yourself to be carried along on the current. You arrive energized and calm. You enjoyed your journey and the process of it. Either way you get to where you are going. The experience however, is very different.

In the past, I held several office jobs in which I remember taking the first approach. I felt pressed for time, worried that I wasn’t doing a good enough job. I couldn’t stop paddling furiously, the results were predictably mediocre, though I didn’t understand why at the time. My response was to paddle harder and harder until finally I was exhausted and quit.

Recently however, given a project to do, I’ve taken the second approach and it’s worked a whole lot better for me.  The results not surprisingly, have been successful. 
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The difference is working from fear and lack of trust or working from love and trust. So simple, and so profound in its implications.

That being said, let’s get back to what to do with all those bazillion wires sticking out of the back of my TV. (I know you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to find out.)
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Sheesh! Wouldn’t you think that TV’s could be designed like computers with places to plug in power for the many components that attach to them? That way just one or maybe two cables could run from the TV to the wall outlets. (Actually, there probably are such TV’s now, invented since we bought this one way back in the mists of time.)

Anyway, I’m trying to figure out what to do with five or six of those tentacular cable things. I think they’re breeding back there behind my TV. Worst are the baby ones. They haven’t grown long enough, so there are enormous plugs to be dealt with half-way to the wall outlet. Grrr…

OK, enough ranting. I’m breathing deeply and relaxing now. I’m approaching this part of the basement project one step at a time, priming the pump with research and planning, allowing space for intuitive leaps of guidance, taking the next step that feels right, then some more research and planning, a synchronicity or two, and taking the next step after that. Allowing the process to unfold.

I’m right in the middle of it and even with all my planning, I can’t see what the outcome will look like because I don’t know where the current will carry me. I’m going to trust in the process and take my time. Sooner or later I will be successful, and my TV set-up will be neat, take up minimal floor space, and blend in with the décor, because I'm going to allow that to happen. That’s how I roll nowadays. 😉

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash books, knick-knacks
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash  monkey
Photo by Dominik Kempf on Unsplash cords