Hugh Hollowell

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Doing The Next Thing

This essay published June 9, 2020

Like a lot of people, I haven’t been sleeping well lately. And by lately, I mean the last three months.

I mean, I don’t know why. After all, there is a global pandemic, millions of Americans are out of work, and mass civil unrest. Why would any of that cause me distress?

Seriously, though, it’s been pretty bad.

But last night, exhausted, I went to bed at 9:30, and was sound asleep by 9:45, and slept through until 5:30, which is more or less my normal wake up time. I got up, made coffee, and sat on the couch, listening to birdsong as the dawn crept in.

I have a long list of things on my to-do list, but this morning I am going to enjoy the feeling of being rested, of having a clear head, of having a slice of beauty before the day begins.

The clear head allowed me to think – something that has felt rare lately.

The last three months have been pretty brutal. I am a community builder by vocation, and what it takes to survive a pandemic and what it takes to build a community are at odds with each other. It’s a perfect storm – a new non-profit, a new city, a new community, and a global unemployment crisis means that some of your projects get put on hold, and some of them die, and some of them have fates that are of yet undecided.

The only way I have survived it has been to create projects – things with definite starts and ends. Projects give me structure, and you don’t have to worry about the future – you just do the next thing.

Building a chicken house. Planning a rainwater catchment system. Building a bookcase. Planning a deck. Starting a newsletter. Starting a podcast. Learning how to edit audio. Learning how to edit video. Doing some contract work.

And I guess, beginning to blog again.

I’m not sure what the end of all this *waves hands* looks like.  I’m not sure what the future, at any reasonable distance out, will look like. So, instead, I am just doing the next thing.

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Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Covid

Hugh Hollowell is a writer and speaker based in Jackson, MS. His writings have appeared in, among other places, The Washington Post, Sojourners, and Ethics Daily. He only publishes here sporadically, but does publish a weekly newsletter. Some people like it.

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