Is It Really That Bad?
On missing a writing deadline and seeing obstacles differently.
It was 10 p.m.
Sitting on a couch at university, I wasn't feeling great.
Today was a day to write. A day to tell a story. But I couldn't make it.
I had spent the past hour racking my brain, rummaging for something I would be satisfied with, yet to no avail.
3 meters away, a guy was speaking on a phone. One seat away, two people were talking to each other. I was distracted. I was low-key annoyed. But not at them. I was upset because I was right there — 2 hours before midnight — yet felt so uninspired to write that I could be easily distracted by my surroundings.
*Sigh*
Let's go home.
🏠 And home, I went
Reaching home, I felt disappointed. It was painful to miss a publishing deadline. When my housemates were chilling in the living room, I tried to do the same. But the disappointment and the "pain" eventually caved in, and I felt mentally disturbed.
Why did this happen again?
Wasn't it my goal to batch-write and schedule ahead, so that the stories could still be told even if I was busy?
Didn't I take the two-week hiatus partly to do that?
Ah shit, the bathroom light isn't working.
After dealing with the bathroom light, I took a shower. In the shower, I thought about this obstacle I was facing.
Three years since the start of my writing journey, I have tried to hit each deadline and failed several times. Sometimes, missing one would take a toll on me — I would fall into a slump and couldn't get anything done the next day. Sometimes, I would disappear for weeks or months, convincing myself I was taking a hiatus, albeit unannounced.
Then one idea hit me.
This is a good thing to talk about.
🧗♂️ The obstacle is the way
Lately, I have been reading The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday. The idea is as simple as the title suggests. To help you understand it, what's better than a little story Ryan told?
There is an old Zen story about a king whose people had grown soft and entitled. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he hoped to teach them a lesson. His plan was simple: He would place a large boulder in the middle of the main road, completely blocking entry into the city. He would then hide nearby and observe their reactions.
How would they respond? Would they band together to remove it? Or would they get discouraged, quit, and return home?
With growing disappointment, the king watched as subject after subject came to this impediment and turned away. Or, at best, tried halfheartedly before giving up. Many openly complained or cursed the king or fortune or bemoaned the inconvenience, but none managed to do anything about it.
After several days, a lone peasant came along on his way into town. He did not turn away. Instead he strained and strained, trying to push it out of the way. Then an idea came to him: He scrambled into the nearby woods to find something he could use for leverage. Finally, he returned with a large branch he had crafted into a lever and deployed it to dislodge the massive rock from the road.
Beneath the rock were a purse of gold coins and a note from the king, which said:
"The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition."
It was a great story to sum up the book. While we cannot change what happens to us, we can control how we perceive them. And, as a result, how we respond to them.
When we perceive obstacles as opportunities, how we respond to them turns from whining and doing nothing to feeling excited about capitalizing on them. In other words,
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
—Marcus Aurelius
🦙 What does it mean to me?
In the shower, I was happy I finally had something to talk about. But more than that, I was excited to practice "The Obstacle Is The Way".
Meeting a publishing deadline has been an obstacle for me. I remember it being on Sundays, and me writing at night with few hours to go. I was rushing things and what came out didn't feel great.
Today, it felt like a pain. It paralyzed me as I hit writer’s block. It threw me onto an emotional rollercoaster that only seemed to go downhill yet not in a fun way.
However, I remember the book. I remember seeing obstacles as opportunities I could take advantage of.
And what did I do?
1. I turned it into a story.
It inspired me to open my laptop at midnight and type up the complete essay in one go.
Missed the deadline by a few hours, but it felt good to have a nice story to share.
2. I seriously thought about why.
Why was this an obstacle in the first place?
Why did I always feel relieved after publishing a story every Thursday, then get stressed out as the next Thursday approached?
The answer was, I was not doing enough. At the beginning of the year, I identified "self-imposed expectations" as an obstacle. So, I experimented with publishing two stories a week in January, then one story every Thursday in February until now. By the way, I still owe you a review, don't I?
*nervous laughter*
But I wasn't doing enough. While I had never broken a Thursday streak; while I usually block out Wednesdays and Thursdays to write, it was "living life on the edge".
Because on weeks — like this week — when I was so busy that those writing days were occupied, I would fail to hit our lovely deadline. Facing this obstacle is a good opportunity to try other ways and harder if I want to keep Not Alone Club going.
I should really batch-write and schedule ahead.
I told myself that many times. But feeling relieved after publishing often turned me away to do other work and/or relax, until the next Thursday came and "ah shit, here we go again".
Hence, with a slightly less busy next week, I will try "batch-writing and scheduling ahead". Let's see how it goes.
3. What do I do when I really can't make it?
3 years into writing online, I realized I didn't have a backup plan if I missed a deadline. I didn't know what to do if that happened.
Sure, I could tell you that I couldn't make it. But it wasn't a natural thing to do. It was "feeling disappointed", "being quiet about it", and "going to bed hoping that nobody noticed it".
Facing this obstacle today gave me a chance to clarify — if life happens and I really can't make it, it's fine. I will have a template ready. I will announce when I can. I will figure out how to do better next time.
No pressure. Because writing here should be fun.
🪴Takeaway
2.26 a.m.
I wanted this to be a simple, mini-story. I guess I went overboard a little.
The turn of events led me to pick up Ryan's book. Although I haven't finished it, its core message gave me a way to see things differently and for the better.
Still, I am not perfect at this. Like the writing obstacle today, I still feel bad when bad things happen to me. But I have come to appreciate this — “the obstacle is the way” becomes natural the more you practice it.
Slowly but surely, it is changing my life.
Hope it does for you, too.
The obstacle is not in the way.
The obstacle is the way.
—Ryan Holiday
—Thomas🦙
👋 Hey, you little stranger
This little section is like the “P.S.” you sometimes see at the end of a story here, but it now has a home of its own🎉
I sometimes talk a little bit about the story above, make an announcement or just a tiny update on what I have been up to.
April and May are busy months packed with university assignments, especially when I am also writing stories weekly and (trying to) keep Graduate with Me going.
Oh, internships. Almost forgot about them /_ \
Graduate with Me is now put aside until I have time to make a good idea of what I want out of it. It doesn’t feel right to disappear after a month of active presence, but it’s better than doing a project without a clear purpose.
That’s all for this week! Hope you had a great one so far :3
🏆 Weekly gold
Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇
It’s April, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*cries internally*
🎁 Credits
Andrea De Santis on Unsplash — cover photo.
Ryan Holiday — The Obstacle Is The Way.