{"id":7554,"date":"2016-04-08T22:47:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T02:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7554"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:50:35","slug":"one-thing-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7554","title":{"rendered":"One thing at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve signed up for\u00a061 courses on Udemy<\/a>, and 32 on Coursera<\/a>, and 12 on EdX<\/a>. I have started about a third\u00a0of these courses, and I’ve only completed seven or eight.<\/p>\n

What does this say about me?<\/p>\n

It’s not for lack of interest; I was excited about each of them when I signed up or bought them. It’s true that some were disappointing quality, but others were very good.<\/p>\n

No. It’s a number thing.<\/p>\n

Add ’em up: 105 courses. On topics ranging from statistics to songwriting, from acrylic painting to HTML5, from Adobe In Design to theory of game design. And I truly intended to learn everything in each of those 105 subjects.<\/p>\n

Oh please – who does that??<\/p>\n

If I live to be 100, I might be able to learn two of these subjects well, and five of them superficially. Or maybe a bit more.<\/p>\n

But however many courses and subjects I learn before I die, here’s how I’m going to do it: One class at a time.<\/p>\n

My new brain has developed\u00a0a\u00a0new set of rules. Some of the rules have faded\u00a0in these five months since my\u00a0brain surgery<\/a>, but others have held fast and seem to be permanent.<\/p>\n

One of the new permanent rules is: One thing at a time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I have to stop scattering my attention\u00a0like some kid in a roomful of brightly colored toys.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure when this became such a problem for me, but I really try to do\u00a0too much. I set unrealistic expectations and then feel overwhelmed. I pursue absolutely everything that interests me, and I’m interested in dozens of subjects.<\/p>\n

I had a similar problem as a traveler. When you go\u00a0backpacking in Africa at 36, you know you’ll only do this trip once in your life, and so you want to try and see everything.<\/p>\n

That’s one of the lessons I learned in Africa: It’s a big continent. You can’t see everything. Once you get that, you just choose, then you savor, and you have a much better trip.<\/p>\n

A variation on the classic,\u00a0Be Here Now.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know I won’t be able to do everything that I want to do in life, though there’s many days when I still think I should try.<\/p>\n

If I keep starting new things, though,\u00a0I’m not going to finish anything.<\/p>\n

My brain taught me this because after the surgery it simply couldn’t handle more than one thing<\/a> at a time. When I tried to do too much, it stopped me.<\/p>\n

Writing this blog every day works well with my new brain and its rule.<\/p>\n

My plan is to do 16,072 posts if I live to be hundred. With 16,072 posts, I might actually be able to write about every subject that I’ve ever wanted to write about.<\/p>\n

And if I don’t live to be 100, I’ll still have written hundreds\u00a0of blog posts.<\/p>\n

One post at a time.<\/p>\n

Today is Day 277… 15,795 more to go<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 1971, the year that Be Here Now<\/em> by Ram Dass<\/a> was originally published.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve signed up for\u00a061 courses on Udemy, and 32 on Coursera, and 12 on EdX. I have started about a third\u00a0of these courses, and I’ve only completed seven or eight. What does this say about me? It’s not for lack of interest; I was excited about each of them when I signed up or bought … read more One thing at a time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[310,493,880,285,1363,872,878,504,879],"class_list":["post-7554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvisation","tag-310","tag-brain","tag-courses","tag-learning","tag-mindfulness","tag-patience","tag-ram-dass","tag-recovery","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7554"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7574,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7554\/revisions\/7574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}