I’ve always been an overachiever. I’m not saying that in a bragging kind of way – overachieving is hardly a worthwhile goal. But it’s not a type of pathology either, as some would have us think.
Tag: mental health
Who Am I?
All my life, I’ve been trying to work out who I am. Perhaps not surprisingly, I had my first existential crisis at age eight (or thereabouts) at my grandmother’s house in Boston. I don’t remember what precipitated it – a dream, perhaps – but I do recall bolting upright in bed, wondering why I was put on this earth, what the hell I was going to do with my life and how I would know which path was the right one.
Finding the Sweet Spot
I’ve finally found the sweet spot in tennis and in life. That magical space where shape, force, intent and purpose come together to do the job. The place where you’ve been striving for control but understand that you can get even greater satisfaction by doing less, when you stop trying to do things right in favour of doing the right things.
The Art of Creativity
If one more person tells me they’re not creative, I’m going to douse them with my acrylics – the quick drying ones that only come off with scrubbing and a bit of alcohol. 🎨
The Timeless Wisdom of the Stoics
Ancient philosophy is a timeless and infinite teacher … if only we would listen. In fact, in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty, winding back the clock a few millennia might just be the key to finding our footing.
Fragments Web Series Premiere
The Fragments web series was launched on 23 February at the National Film and Sound Archives in Canberra by the ACT Arts… Read more Fragments Web Series Premiere
Adaptation, 3 Ways
Pandemics have a habit of placing humankind on the back foot. To everyone around me, I may have looked like I was (finally?) slowing down, but my brain was on high alert. Anxiety does that. Thoughts take you where they will – rationality, optional. My mind, nerves and heart revved constantly, gearing up for destinations unknown. Meanwhile, I left a few crumbs in case I got lost … which, for a while, seemed to be often.
But it recently occurred to me that I wasn’t lost at all. I was simply changing.
Life After Lockdown
Get fit, brush up on French, update the kids’ scrapbooks, publish my play, experiment with other forms of writing, be grateful.
That was the list I wrote after the shock of the first lockdown settled, somewhere around April 2020. It was part ‘When life gives you lemons’ and part ‘If I stay busy I won’t have time to think about seismic changes in the world.’
Detective Work
As writers we often play detective – probing, investigating, discovering, each step bringing us closer to the truth. But what if the subject of your investigation is mysterious, surly, contradictory and often inaccessible? What if the person you’re trying to understand is standing on the other side of a locked door, with a mad dog at their side?
What if that person is you?