Fits and Starts

In a scene in the movie "Swing Time," Fred Astaire had to toss an umbrella across a room, into an umbrella stand. On the day of filming, it just didn't go his way. He later said,

"I did it 45 times, and it always hit the edge. So I said, 'That's it! Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'm coming back, and I'm going to get [it] … I came back next morning fresh as a daisy, and that umbrella went into the stand on the first take."

I can't begin to tell how many times things have gone like this at times for me --- where the feel of something isn't right and you know you should quit or do something else for a while, and come back to the problem later. There is a great amount of wisdom in knowing the moment when you have to take a step back, rather than pressing on and making a problem worse by building up frustration. Working while angry is not generally conducive to productivity --- things get thrown, work gets sloppy and the anger consumes energy and tires its host. Admitting that something isn't working, rethinking and regrouping is not a sign of failure. A break often lets us see the problem in a different way --- either through analysis, remembering something forgotten, visualizing something going right and the steps necessary, and in physical challenges like in Mr. Astaire's case, getting a fresh spatial read on the situation and what the solution is going to take. I'm a big fan of productive breaks when there's something else that can be worked on.

And then there are some days when it's like the universe is telling you to go back to bed and wait for tomorrow. I had one of those days several years ago. It started with running out of battery charge in the middle of shaving, and the day went downhill from there. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that quite literally, nothing --- not one thing --- went right. In the evening I decided to wash a load of clothes and "try to get something productive done today." About a minute after the water started running into the washing machine, the plastic casing on the whole-house filter, located directly above the washer, cracked and stared spewing water, water everywhere. There are days like that. But, fortunately I've found, these days are often closely followed by ones where it seems like nothing can go wrong. It all evens out in the end.