{"id":34089,"date":"2023-12-04T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=34089"},"modified":"2023-12-02T09:36:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T17:36:45","slug":"a-summary-of-my-graduate-degree-thus-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-summary-of-my-graduate-degree-thus-far\/","title":{"rendered":"A Summary of My Graduate Degree Thus Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is my third time reading The War of Art<\/em> by Steven Pressfield. It’s a go-to book for me, and so are his other works on writing and creativity, such as Turning Pro<\/em>, Do The Work<\/em>, and Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be.<\/em> Like the writings of Austin Kleon (Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work and Keep Going<\/em>), I am always motivated by Pressfield’s books. It’s like listening to “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, “Come Alive” from The Greatest Showman, or other songs that pumps up my jam!<\/a><\/p>\n

The War of Art<\/em> is a slap in the face of resistance. I wasn’t familiar with the concept of “resistance” until reading Pressfield many years ago. And yet, it feels as if he was introducing me to someone I had always known, or a relative I didn’t know I had.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me…just this week I was informed I have a cousin. She is a year younger than me, and went to the same school I went to in Wisconsin, and even married a guy that I graduated with. You see, this gal was the product of a “one-night stand” that my uncle had long, long ago. Because of DNA tests, and the proliferation of ancestry research, this was concluded, and recently she was able to meet her “father.” Actually, she had met him long ago, but just didn’t know HE was her father. None of us knew that the girl we were in class with, ate lunch near, or performed in the spring play with, was, well, our cousin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some times you get introduced to someone\/something that you have known all your life, but didn’t really<\/strong> know. Resistance is one such thing. I now realize that resistance reared its ugly head when I had to write a paper for Sophomore English Literature, or submit a biographical essay for college entrance, or finish a talk for Wednesday night youth group, or compile a bibliography for my master’s degree, or put the final touches on a Sunday sermon, or stain the deck before the Pacific Northwest rains come, or, or, or, etc. etc. etc.<\/p>\n

You see, resistance is alive and well…right up to this very moment.<\/p>\n

I have to write a summary of my Design Workshop, reach out to Stakeholders, schedule One-on-One interviews, write an annotated bibliography, and compile a Syntopical Learnings Essay, but instead I chose to pick low-hanging fruit: write this blog post. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I love writing these blogs. I find great joy in the creative expression. It’s life-giving for me. The other obligations, however, are not as life-giving, thus I chose to give into resistance. Willingly. This reveals itself in procrastination. Pressfield says “Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it is the easiest to rationalize” (Pressfield, 21). We don’t tell ourselves that we’re never gonna do this or that. Instead we say, “I’ll do this or that; but I’m just gonna start tomorrow<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Today<\/em>, my friends, I will write this blog. Tomorrow<\/em> I will get to the heavy lifting of the other projects. Sadly, when tomorrow comes, I tend to find other low-hanging fruit to attend to, and push the other projects off, yet again.<\/p>\n

It’s the Tyranny of the Urgent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In 1967, Charles E. Hummel wrote a book of that title. Like many of Pressfield’s books, I read Hummel’s Tyranny of the<\/em> Urgent\u00a0<\/em>over and over and over, which is not difficult to do since it’s only 30 pages long. As a matter of fact, Tyranny of the Urgent<\/em> is one of the 135 books I have read in 2023 (thus far). I mention this number not for a pat on the back, but rather, to illustrate just how diligent I am at procrastination and resistance. Sure, some of the 135 books are required class reading, but the majority<\/strong> are NOT<\/strong>. Rather, they are forms of resistance. I see that now. I’m onto you resistance!<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s what I do: \u00a0I pick up a book so that I don’t have to pick up something else. You may be thinking, “Hey John, it’s OK, there are worse things than a book you could be picking up!” One part of me agrees with you and the other part says, “Get behind me Satan.” \u00a0Yes, I love to read, and it beats doing drugs with dirty needles, but I recognize it as it is: resistance<\/strong>. It’s a way for me to procrastinate and do so with nobility and affirmation.<\/p>\n

So, this has been a summary of my graduate degree thus far. I’m getting it done, learning, keeping up with tasks, and become Dr. John Fehlen. But along the way I am in an all out war against Resistance. I agree with Pressfield when he says “Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, [and] prevent us from doing our work ” (Pressfield, 7).<\/p>\n

Resistance is a really big deal, so I think it is only right that when I finish this blog post, I should head to my local library and check out some books on the subject. Just to deep deeper. Yah, that’s what I’ll do today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow<\/em> I’ll get going on the other stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my third time reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It’s a go-to book for me, and so are his other works on writing and creativity, such as Turning Pro, Do The Work, and Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be. Like the writings of Austin Kleon (Steal Like An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[80,2197,2212,1924],"class_list":["post-34089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-art","tag-pressfield","tag-resistance","tag-war","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34089"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34420,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34089\/revisions\/34420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}