It’s not so much that I need a project, rather that I feel obligated to get myself one.
These days it seems everyone has a personal project, a mission, an illuminating quest. Shouldn’t I have one of those? Shouldn’t I be immersed in some inspirational project?
So, what exactly is the ideal project for a menopausal freelance writer with three kids, a husband, a puppy and a new house? Are the afore-mentioned not all themselves works-in progress? Isn’t my life already filled with projects? Perhaps I need merely consult my lengthy to-do list to find a project. Wrong! The rules of this thing apparently dictate that the project you choose must be beyond the scope of all the daily obligations you already have.
In other words: stop being so lazy, rise up and challenge yourself! Turn grocery shopping into a body, soul, and carbon cleansing experience (The Hundred-Mile Diet). Banish garbage (Amy and Adam Korst’s Green Garbage Project) or sex (Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex) from your life. Learn to play an instrument (A Devil to Play: One Mans Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestras Most Difficult Instrument by Jasper Rees), to cook (Julie & Julia), to try new things (The One-Week Job Project by Sean Aiken), to be more happy (Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project).
As if I wasn’t already feeling guilty about not having a project, multi-project guy A.J. Jacobs puts me to shame by first reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica (The Know-It-All) then following up with The Year of Living Biblically: One Mans Humble Quest To Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible. And no, it has not escaped this writer’s attention that many of these personal projects end up on the best-seller list, some even on the big screen. All the more reason to get off my lazy ass and pick a project.
So okay, how about taste-testing every pinot grigio the local liquor store, no, wait - the world - has to offer? Delicious fun, but not exactly the uplifting of spirits intended by such projects. Besides there’s that pesky rule about doing things beyond the scope of one’s regular life.
There is however no rule that says a project has to be serious and all about self-deprivation (Judith Levine’s Not Buying It, Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man). Ideally yes, if you’re going to put in the time you should learn something but that doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining as well. (Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies, A Film Critics Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made by Michael Adams)
Apparently in the realm of personal projects there is no such thing as weird. People have: photographed each morsel they’ve eaten (Tucker Shaw’s “Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth), followed Oprah’s advice for a year (Living Oprah by Robyn Okrant), said yes to everyone who asked them out on a date (A Year of Yes by Maria Dahvana Headley), spent 18-month cross-dressing (Norah Vincent’s A Man Like Me), and lived “a sinner’s semester at America’s holiest university” (Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple).
Then again, some have chosen to stick to simple stuff, like reading (www.readallday.org), or other pleasures (Charla Muller’s “365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy, Doug Brown’s Just Do It.). No fair running off to some foreign land for a project though (Joyce Major’s Smiling at the World: A Woman s Passionate Quest for Adventure and Love). Spending a year in Provence is hardly possible for most, besides, such drastic setting changes seem the easy route to personal inspiration and introspection.
Dammit, I need a project. A project for personal growth, a project that challenges, one that pushes me to stretch, to be a better person, to learn new things.
So, it’s decided then. My project is…no project at all, rather, something even more ambitious and difficult: to consciously apply all those lofty goals of a project - to endeavour, learn and grow – to that on-going adventure that is my daily life. Starting…NOW!
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