Criticism, Reviews, and Paying It Forward
Sometimes I’m not very sensible: I try to do too much. I want to blog and vlog and podcast and write books and host a community and occasionally sign in to Instagram. But I really don’t have time to do all that. So I wonder what I should give up. Before I can make up my mind, I fall in a heap, feeling overwhelmed. And I resolve to give up everything. I decide it’s time to go off and do something completely different.
I had one of those overwhelming days at the beginning of this week just as Imogen and I were due to record a new podcast episode. “I never want to podcast again,” I told my daughter. But yesterday, I felt better, so Imogen and I ended up gathering around our mic after all to record episode 186.
It’s funny how quickly our moods can change, isn’t it? One day, the world looks grey, and we can’t summon the energy to do anything. We can’t imagine ever wanting to return to the things we enjoy. “That’s it. I’ve had enough.” But then the sun reappears, and we feel excited about life again. We want to dive back in. Continue what we’ve been doing, and even try out some new ideas. We’re open to fresh opportunities. And we forget that we were feeling overwhelmed. “I can do this!” That’s what I say.
Yesterday, despite recently feeling overloaded, I found myself getting involved with two new projects:
Accepting an invitation to speak at the 2021 Catholic Homeschooling Conference
Suggesting that an unschooling friend and I collaborate to produce a Christian unschooling podcast
I want to do both of these things, so I hope my world doesn’t turn grey again any time soon.
As I said in a previous blog post, ideas are delicious and possibilities are exciting. But do I need to be sensible? I really should give up some of the things that I’m doing. But what? That’s a question I continue to ponder.
In this week’s podcast, episode 186, Imogen and I are talking about:
The highs and lows that affect our parenting, homeschooling and creative lives
Criticism: why do we let other people’s opinions affect what we do? Whose opinions should we listen to? Why we shouldn’t let criticism stop us from using our talents
Reviews: why we don’t ask for many reviews
Writing about things we have never experienced
Paying It Forward: is free online stuff really free?
We’re also discussing a book and some musicals.
And we’re telling stories about:
removing a dead tree
cockroaches, silo art, and our recent holiday to see Callum and Sophie
how I might have made a difference to the lives of the world’s dogs
and many other things
Show Notes
Things we mention in this episode:
Tamworth
Botanic gardens and Marsupial Park
Country Music Festival
Gunnedah
Silo Art: Dorothea MacKellar and her poem, My Country
Water Tower Art: The Long Tan Battle of the Vietnam War
Books
Show Your Work: Ten Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon
Tin Tin comics (and Netflix shows)
Musicals and Mini-Series
The Greatest Showman
Les Mis
Oklahoma
Hamilton
The Crown
The Chosen
My Unschooling Books
Curious Unschoolers: paperback
Radical Unschool Love: paperback
Where You Can Find Me
Unschooling Community
My Stories of an Unschooling Family community
Youtube
Blogs
Stories of an Unschooling Family
Where You Can Find Imogen
Blog
Youtube
Books
Photos
Silo and water tower art that we recently saw at Gunnedah, NSW.
Please feel welcome to stop by and comment. You could share your experiences of overwhelming times. Should we make decisions while we’re feeling low? Or maybe we should wait until we’re feeling better?
Do you ever feel discouraged because of a lack of feedback or critical comments or bad reviews?
We could talk about musicals. Have you seen The Greatest Showman?
Imogen and I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast episode!