Sometimes I feel like I’m in the movie 50 First Dates.
In that movie the heroine has had some sort of accident that has impacted her memory: she can’t process short-term into long-term memory, so whenever she wakes up, she starts back on the morning of the accident. Kind of like GroundHogDay but without the memories…
As it happens, I’ve been away from my blog for a while.
And behind my back they updated the plugin from 2.25 -where I had sloped off- to 4.4. So I’m stuck in ‘yesterday’ while the world has moved on.
I remember when they first launched the 2.0 version. I loved working with it. It was intuitive. A little bulky. Prone to glitches. But somehow we gelled.
And now they’ve got Divi 4.4 and I feel like I’m in the Matrix: when I wasn’t looking they not only redecorated the place, but the stairs and the doors have been moved about, and what used to be the kitchen is now the guest room.
To complicate matters, documentation on the topic is outdated. And for some reason the very friendly lady who assisted me in chat, was actually in sales. So she no-know-nuttin’-neither.
And as I find myself drifting through a building I once knew, I don’t quite know how to proceed: my simple little project for this evening, ‘Publish my first blog post in the Obstacle Series’, has turned into a labyrinth of geek issues, tutorials, and a butt-load of questions.
Like, where have all my images gone? Yep, for some reason my media library is empty! And I’m sure support will be able to sort that out at some point, but it’s another door that I’m looking at: knock and go in? Or leave for another day?
But… none of that is the real problem.
All of this is what you might call a ‘fake obstacle’.
You see, I don’t know exactly what your hidden commitment is, but mine is ‘flying below the radar’.
Creating a blog post is making myself visible and my commitment demands that I stay invisible: “Don’t step into the light, because then you’ll get hurt.”
After doing an exercise called ‘making your Life Chart‘ that commitment is no longer hidden, I can see it for what it is.
But it’s still in play!
And so I can be happily moving forward through the building, looking for the living room, and then come across a staircase.
And I’ll start climbing the stairs and suddenly I’ll find myself in a corridor with 20 doors…
And, naturally, at that point I ask myself which door to go through first.
That.
That is the hidden commitment.
By climbing those stairs I am now faced with 20 different doors, and if I knock on even a single one I won’t be coming out any time soon.
Which means I won’t be flying high any time soon.
So yeah, Mission Accomplished!
Because the longer I stay exploring those 20 rooms, the longer I can keep flying below the radar.
But you see, and here’s the thing, none of these doors are relevant!
I climbed the stair case because it presented itself, but I was actually headed for the living room!
And now that I’m aware of that, I can just revert back to the moment before I climbed the stairs (or, in physical-speak, climb back down the stairs) and go to the living room. Cos that’s where I was headed!
Sound very convoluted?
Yeah. Well, there’s my hidden commitment for you…
Trust me, it drives me bonkers at times.
Fortunately, I’m getting better at recognizing it.
My Life Chart has really opened my eyes to my patterns – and why I have them to begin with. And so rather than diving into Divi 4.4 and getting to the bottom of those 20 doors -and hundreds of questions!-, I’m just taking what I need and I’m off to post my blog.
Sure, it’s taken me two hours more than it should have, but that’s because I needed two hours to see what was happening: that I was diving in to resolve a fake obstacle.
But last year that would have taken me three days – or weeks!- so I say this is a win,😊.
