The Challenge of a Challenge

This summer, I participated in an Instagram photo challenge and posted 50 days of summer photos. Why? Good question. 

It began as a challenge to do a challenge. I’d seen lots of 100-day challenges for artists and writers but was afraid that if I did one, I’d fail. I know something about setting oneself up for failure and wasn’t going to go down that road. However, the idea of a shorter challenge intrigued me. If nothing else, it would be a good experiment. 

I chose a summer challenge because living at nearly 10K feet means summer is short. It’s almost sacred. And like a bear, I come out of my cave, and I go. I write and art and play. I spend much time with my family and cook huge amounts of food. I drink and revel and go to concerts. I hike with my dog. I boat and swim and garden my flowers. I increase my volunteer time. I wake early to write. I’m up late to art. I am a different creature. A 50-day summer challenge seemed easy enough to complete. 

It wasn’t. 

In the beginning, posting was fun! I culled my photos and found my favorites. I loved hearing from others. I followed new people and learned more about everything. But as time wore on, a discomfort emerged. Posting took time away from living in the present moment. I didn’t like being tied to my phone. It seemed too much in all ways, including the privilege it was to post photos every day. I began to cringe. I almost quit. But like writing a novel, the experience rounded itself out. By completing the 50 days, I had to sit with discomfort and trust in the experience. Posting didn’t drive billions of people to my Patreon account or my website. But I did learn from a community interested in similar work. My expectations and goals shifted. Finally, I let go of the idea of “challenges” altogether. 

I’ll continue at my old pace—posting here and there—sometimes for myself, sometimes for my work. I’ll keep a keen eye on my colleagues’ projects and encourage them on. Experiments help us grow. It’s not about success or failure. It’s about the process.  

The Destination or the Journey

Last month I embarked on an epic, spring break road trip with my husband and four teens: three of our own and one extra because we’re insane. After a staggering 1700 miles, the kids declared that we’d finally reached our destination—the Pacific Ocean.

I disagreed.

In my mind, we wouldn’t reach our destination until we pulled back into our driveway in Colorado. The road trip was just that: a trip on the road. There was no destination, I said. It was all a destination. No surprise; the kids rolled their eyes. For them, the beach was it. Sounding somewhat Taoist or like a guest on Oprah’s Soul Sunday show, I insisted that everything we’d done on the trip had been part of the journey and that we needed to live in the present to truly appreciate the adventure. Again, more eye-rolling.

Given we had another 1700 miles to go, I had lots of time to ponder this idea of mine, and eventually, I wound it back to my writing.

What is the destination for a writer? Is it to make money? To get published? Send a message? Leave a stamp on the world? Waste time? Perhaps it is all of the above, but I realize that like a road trip, every part of the writing process is part of the whole. To focus on one piece is to miss the rest.

I wouldn’t have skipped the Grand Canyon, where crazy tourists fed squirrels and told their kids that icebergs created the canyon. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to forego the dinner at the Mormon diner in Utah or miss the opportunity to get lost in slot canyons. I wanted them to see the Mexican border, drink milkshakes while listening to Buddy Holly on Route 66, and witness the Vegas hoopla. If we’d jumped directly to the Pacific, they’d have missed rich and tacky parts of our country. They would have missed the details.

Epic road trips are exactly like the writing process, and as writers, we must experience every stop along the way.