The Awesome Power of Getting Off the Sofa
The Universe has a funny way of telling you when it’s time to get off your ass.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn in June of 2021. I’m reposting it here as part of moving my writing to my own platform…
So there I am, staring at my inbox quietly having a midlife crisis when an email pops in titled “Video Project”...
“Hey Rob… our media person left for a new gig. Can you help with creating an introduction video for our new Executive Director?”
For context, I’m on the board of directors for a local non-profit, and we’ve just finalized the selection of an amazing candidate to replace our outgoing founder and exec who is embarking on a much deserved retirement. The staff and other board members know my background. During the interview process to get onto the board, I think I may have said “I’ve got decades of video experience, and if you ever need anything, I’d be happy to help.” Usually when you say these kinds of things you never expect to get that call. But now… I’m getting that call.
The Universe has a funny way of calling you on your own bullshit.
Remember that mid-life crisis I mentioned above? Lately, I’ve been way way too deep inside my own head. “Man, I’m getting tired of all of these emails and spreadsheets. I really miss creating stuff. How come I never create anything? I used to be an artist, I used to make things… I’m not even sure what I do anymore!” The crazy part is that I have a pretty cool job. I work from home, and I get paid very well to help amazingly smart and talented people coalesce incredibly technical and difficult subjects into a coherent plan for online video learning. But, over the last few months the things that lift me in my job have been overpowered by the things that drag me down.
Rob, you’re just stressed out… take a chill pill and things will look better.
Things are weird… So much of our world is broken and what isn’t obviously broken is changing rapidly. Our lizard/monkey brains did not evolve to deal with sustained, chronic stress. Fight/flight response is only supposed to be momentary. Not a year and a half. This near constant barrage of change and bad news has me questioning everything about my world… Hence the mid-life crisis. But, it’s not a “grow a moustache and get a sports car” kind of crisis. It’s more an “OK, now what?” kind of crisis.
“OK now what?” is a profound question. It’s the question you ask when you realize you’ve been at something a long time and you’ve lost track of everything. You’ve lost track of time, your friends, yourself… everything. The last year and a half has been like that… sitting on the sofa binging on Netflix or whatever and suddenly you look up, rub your eyes, stretch, scratch “yourself” and look at the clock… “WTF? Is it that time already?” Then you realize it’s time to get up.
But this sofa is sooooooo comfy!
Even though parts of you have fallen asleep, gone numb, even ache, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re comfortable. You don’t need to get up right now… Just one more show and then you’ll get up. You start to settle back into that indentation and block things out, but then the Universe comes a knockin... and you can’t ignore it. You gotta get up off the sofa and answer the door.
Throughout this mid-life crisis, I’ve been lamenting that I don’t create any more. But I haven’t been picking my nose the last 18 months… I’ve done a lot more than I give myself credit for. I’ve learned to play the bass guitar (not well), I’ve completed a community leadership program, I’ve joined the board of a non-profit, I’ve started a local bike route mapping project… Oh and I’ve been hitting my work targets all while dealing with unprecedented strategic change. As awesome as those things are, though, they’re not “creation”. I don’t have a thing that I can point to and say… “I made that.”
But Rob… You haven’t shot anything in years!! Can you even turn on a camera?
As I said above, the Universe has a funny way of calling you on your bullshit. It forces you to get up, dust off the cobwebs and do… something. For me, that something is going to be a 2 minute video introduction for the new Executive Director of the Deschutes Land Trust. I’m going to pull out all my gear, inventory it, clean it up, and test it. Then I’m going to make sure my workstation is up to date with the latest software updates, and clear space on the RAID for this project. Then I’m going to shoot an amazing interview, cut that down with some beautiful b-roll and music, and finally post it to the Trust’s YouTube channel. It won’t be perfect but it WILL get done.
Then I’ll thank the Universe for getting me off the sofa.
UPDATE… I wrote this article in the days leading up to the shoot… I’m happy to report that I did NOT screw it up! You can see the end result here on the YouTube channel for the Deschutes Land Trust. It is not “perfect” but it is “done”... and that will be the subject of future article LOL...
