FINDING THE FIRE ~ YOU CAN THANK CHRIS FOR THIS ONE

As many of you are aware, I purchased my very own domain name a couple of weeks ago. I was so pleased with myself. It was this HUGE milestone. Finding just the right domain felt like it had taken forever. In actual fact, it had been weeks. Possibly months. But that can feel like forever when you feel ready to go and are being held back by something like just the right name. Therefore, once the right name hit me, the desire to snatch it up, was irresistible. Of course, I did it. Couldn't help myself. Ignored that voice that said, "You know nothing about setting up a website." Did it anyway. Called a friend of a friend for some info. Spoke to another friend about possibly designing a header. Both of these people were helpful; they just weren't quite as helpful as I hoped. In other words, they really didn't have time for my project.

On the bright side, I did figure out how simple tabs are on blogger. On the not-so-bright side, the fact that it was so simple and I missed it, left me feeling even more worried about this site than before. It would have made me feel better had it been more complicated. The fact that a chimp would have figured it out more quickly was not encouraging.

Be that as it may, after hearing from several "computer" people about how wonderful various hosting sites are, I decided to go with the first one. That would be the one that I heard about from the friend of the friend. He, at least, returned my calls and I knew would help me out as much as he could. So, Tuesday evening I decided that there was no more putting it off. I have excellent ideas for this site. I just have to tinker with it in order to make them a reality. Wednesday was going to be magic. If it took me all day to figure out how to move it onto that host site, well that was what I would do.

Wednesday I woke up with a bone cracking migraine that lasted all day long. Nothing would break that sucker. I never made it out of bed. I sat up, pulled up my laptop and posted briefly that I was down for the count. Obviously my big plan for moving my site onto a hosting site didn't happen. Yesterday wasn't much better. I did my HERE'S TO YOU THURSDAY and went straight back to bed. I finally caught something of a break today (hence a "real" post). So, I went back and started reading what you folks have been writing and got stopped fairly quickly when I read Chris's post at A DELIBERATE LIFE. She was talking about finding the fire (her motivation) to really step up her efforts in her weight loss goals. She has lost so much and gotten a bit too comfortable. She isn't where she wants to be, but she has gotten too comfortable.



It made me think about me and my need to find the fire with my domain site. I am not a bit comfortable. I kind of have the opposite problem. We both are treading water for different reasons. I am thinking about my site, coming up with great ideas, reading books on non-profit organizations, etc. I can't say that I am not "working" on getting this idea off of the ground, but I am not moving into that place where I am really nervous. Make that scared. Really scared. Because I have no idea what I am doing. I, too, have to find that fire and go with it. Put it on a hosting site. Well, that can't be too painful. Stick a page up indicating it is under construction and then tinker around. Eventually I am bound to backdoor my way into something that works. Sadly, that is pretty much how I roll. Pretty much every successful thing I have done on the computer has been totally by accident. I figure this site will probably be a lot like that.

If that doesn't make sense to you, it could also be compared to my driving skills. I was a sales rep who had a fairly large territory in eastern GA and western SC. Before that job, I was terrified of getting lost. It would cause massive anxiety attacks. I got lost so often on that job that I stopped getting them. It became a daily occurrence. I had to account for my time as a new sales rep and every day I had a various amount of time spent "lost." Sometimes it was several hours. My manager would call me when he got these reports. "You were lost two hours yesterday? What was up with that?" I would launch into this detailed description of where I wanted to go, where I ended up, how I tried to retrace my steps, where I then ended up, how I was late for my appointment, etc. We only had this conversation once and he no longer called. He just accepted my time spent "lost" as me truly being lost.

However, the awesome thing about being lost was that I found stuff. New accounts that I didn't know where there. Shortcuts to places as I began to recognize road names. Most importantly, north, south, east, and west stopped being something on a map, and began to actually mean something to me. You would think that should be obvious. Let me tell you: it wasn't. And driving is so much harder when you truly cannot comprehend NSEW. A whole new world opens up when you do. When something moves from theoretical to practical it changes your LIFE. And that is what being lost did for me. That... and no more anxiety attacks. Well, until I started forgetting how to get where I was going when I should know. But that is memory loss and NOT being lost. Two totally different things.



Back to this website business and finding the fire. I have spent the last few years trying to avoid stress because it causes migraines. In some ways, amping up your life, testing your limits, finding the fire is stressful. So, my natural reaction now is to step back. Move away. However, if I don't dig down just a little and find the fire to get this site on a web hosting site than I am in idle. My project is in idle. It is all well and good to have wonderful ideas. Ideas that can change the world. But, if they never leave your head they don't DO anything. They don't CHANGE anything.

Chris has lost over 100 pounds. She looks beautiful. Her head is in a good place. She can do things with her kids. She is healthy. If she decided that she was happy with her weight right now, no one could argue. Drop in on her page. Look at her. She is gorgeous. However, she has not met HER goal weight. And that is what matters. She set a goal and she intends to meet it. To do that she says that she has to find that fire she had at the beginning of her journey.

The reason that I love Chris's blog is that whatever she writes about, be it weight loss or life, is applicable to anything in my life at any time. There is always crossover value if I am open enough to see it. Right now, I need to find the fire just to get my domain name onto a host server. Then I am going to have to find the fire to keep plugging away at figuring out how to make that site do what I need it to do. I have faith in the rest of it. I have faith when I send you people the email about the need for the doctor info that you will give me what you know and will move the email along. And that email will keep moving and my inbox will be overflowing. I don't worry about that part at all. It is the website building that makes me feel faint. Paralyzed. So this finding the fire business isn't a one-time event. It is a life event. Over and over we have to dig deep and find the fire. Things happen that seem too much, too overwhelming, impossible, etc. Or maybe you know that they are possible, but you are just too tired. You have been at this for a long time and tried so many different things and none of them have worked right yet. That is when it is most important that you find the fire.

As an aside, life doesn't make this whole fire business easy. My laptop found its own sort of fire via a virus, and is currently residing with the computer fix-it people. My cursing veto went right out the window, and I made excellent use of the f-bomb in every possible context. Noun. Verb. Adverb. Adjective. I was very prolific about the whole thing. It is only going to cost me $100 that I don't really have to get it back. Yippee. So, I will have to find my fire on one of my parents' computer or wait until Monday to find it on mine.