Just mow the lawn.

I’ve employed several strategies to mowing my lawn. I’ve done it in sections – left of the drive, right of the drive (the largest and most annoying section), backyard – with breaks in between. I’ve tried squares – mowing the edges carefully then looping until I reach the center. I decided the strips was likely more effective – without independent hypothesis testing, I can only speculate that it is, in fact, faster. I used to do strips up and down – toward the house, away from the house, toward the house, away from the house (which is what I would sometimes recite in my head when I grew bored of worrying about some random problem.

It occurred to me tonight, as I sweated uncomfortably, that I could use this as yet another analogy for my career. So I checked back on what I wrote before. That one is about going too quickly. This one? It’s about going at all. So I’m good! On with my story.

So here’s the deal. With any of my sections of yard, I begin by carefully edging the area. Defining the boundaries between my yard and the neighbors', working carefully through the taller grass by the drive without hitting the cement with my mower blade. It, embarrassingly enough, requires a great deal of focus. I’m lining up landmarks, deciding if I should mow a bit into Julie’s lawn since her husband hasn’t had time to deal with it yet this weekend, stopping to pull some weeds on one side of the drive because I just can’t get close enough with my mower (and I hate the trimmer with a passion – I avoid it if at all possible). So that initial part is necessarily slow – I’m making plans, doing the hard part first.

But after that’s done, it’s time to go back and forth. Toward the house, away from the house, toward the house, away from the house… At first, that’s fine. Enjoyable even. On days like today, after several days of rain, the grass is bright and pretty – vividly green and fragrant and soft under my feet. So I line the wheels up with the last patch of grass I cut, and work my way along the yard, happily noting my progress and watching the portion of lawn left to be cut diminish. I sneer at the tall weeds as they wave gently in the breeze – I’ll soon reach them and that space will be pretty lawn once again.

But at some point – almost every time – it gets freaking tedious. I find myself at different points in the yard each time, but always get tired, wish I was inside gulping down cool water and heading toward the shower to get clean again. Sometimes I can talk myself into a cheerful mood again, watching the cutting progress, smelling the cut grass and slight scent of gasoline, enjoying the healthy hum of the mower I bought over a year ago. Today, as I mowed right around dusk when the temperatures were nearly pleasant and the breeze was almost cool, I told myself that I’d mowed in much worse conditions. I should finish up and be grateful that the grass wasn’t too long – I could go at a pretty brisk pace. I was hot, but not at the height of misery as I’ve suffered before.

It didn’t help. At some point, experience had taught me that toward the house, away from the house amounted to up the hill, down the hill (and by “hill” I mean very, very slight incline toward the house – nearly negligible unless you’re shoving a mower around). So I went left, right, left, right instead of toward, away, toward, away. It’s much less fun to sing in my head, but much easier to push the mower.

So I was nearing the house as I walked parallel to the street, inching closer to my home with every strip of grass I cut. If I looked toward the street, I thought everything looked lovely! Look how much progress I’ve made! Looking toward the house though, I could clearly see what needed to be done. The bulk of the lawn wasn’t too tall, but I have several weeds that are pretty long and note the area still in need of attention. The work wasn’t hard, the conditions were pretty good. But it was tedious. And I was tired.

It comes down to brute force sometimes, I think. I need to just put my head down and endure. Keep cutting my neat strips until I reach the house and get to put the mower in the garage, shower, and write for my blog. It’s not particularly pleasant, and today it bothered me more than usual, but it’s what needed to happen. I kept reminding myself not to scowl and swear in my head, but I couldn’t help it – it was irresistible to fight mentally against this task for some reason. The mower puttered and died, out of gas, and I pushed it back to the garage, looking at the tiny patch of lawn left to do. It would have taken no longer than 3 minutes once I refueled.

“Screw it.” I said lightly, wiping my face with my shirt, rolling the mower toward its spot and closing the garage once I was inside. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. Right then, I wanted water in the form of a drink and cool shower – a lovely reward for mowing that always leaves me eager to finish. I had a moment where I wondered if I deserved my reward – I didn’t finish, after all, though I’d come close. But as I considered that, I was already stepping in my shower and reaching for my shampoo. Deserved or not, I was taking what I needed to feel good again.

How’s this fit with my life? I feel like the hard stuff has been done at work – the edging in many of the projects is complete. I see the boundaries, have planned pretty carefully, recognize the tools and people that will be important. It wasn’t trivial to get that edging done, and perhaps it took me longer than it should have, but it’s pretty much complete. While I have some messy spots to redo, I basically need to just start cutting strips. And I’ve started doing that, I think. But I’m at the point where I’m tired. I find myself looking at to do lists and not wanting to do any of it. I’d rather nap. A lot.

I want a trick – to find some patient population which will motivate me by their need for my work. I want a paper to get published so I can be reminded how good it feels to be rewarded for work that’s completed. (Though revising an accepted paper is on my list of things to do and I’m not interested in that either.) I want a goal – some sort of house to work toward as I’m cutting strips so I can glance up and see where I want to end up. I think that’s important – setting a series of goals – and I do miss having that list – but I don’t think it’s the core problem.

The problem is that I don’t want to put in the work right now. I’m just tired – want to continue to watch television and read blogs and conserve mental energy as much as possible. I might cut a couple strips, figure out I want to go a different direction – right/left instead of up/down – but then I put the mower away and rest, unmotivated to head back outside and finish.

My new goal? To work. Make progress in some direction. Do some work on my projects and continue to contribute to others in a more timely fashion. To look around and try to identify where I’m going as I continue to cut the grass that looks like it needs attention. It’s unpleasant at times, but I think for now, the moments of loveliness will carry me through. A nice cool breeze that arrives sparingly, looking back and pretty progress, mowing a bit of the lawn next door to help out a neighbor. The hope is that eventually I’ll want to do this again – will feel motivated and excited and happy. But for now, I think I need to put my head down and push forward.