Thoughts from the Dirty City

“A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, “How heavy is this glass of water?” Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

He continued, “And that’s the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can.”

I have gone round and round many different times on what the first installment of this blog should focus on. Should it be about me, Akron, Dirty City Design, does it NEED to be about design, should it be introductory? I have jotted down a million and one topics, expounded on the merits of each and eventually disregarded each as being “too trite” or “not a good place to start.”

I jacked the quote off a friends blog. When I read it I realized I had been carrying this blog around for months and it had grown insanely heavy. Finding the “perfect topic,” one that could centralize everything that I am as a designer as well as everything I hope this site will be, had gotten in the way of the site being anything. For too long this site has been the resting place of Lorem Ipsum. The proverbial glass had gotten so heavy with the burdens of starting, it had anchored me to one spot, so I put it down.

That brings us to today, picking the glass back up. I stared into it, full of all the disregarded topics, I remembered why I had put it down. Where should I start. What do I have to say that anyone would want to read? Round and round we go….so for now, instead of putting the glass back down, I’m taking a nice long drink and moving on.

To conclude, I have realized that blogging is a lot like designing, if you over think it, it isn’t going to be any good, and sometimes the best place to start is where someone else left off.

Hopefully this quote will inspire you to put down your burdens and enjoy some of the first signs of spring.