Hello Royalty!
I recently discovered a type of music called staccato, and the dictionary defines it as music “performed with each note sharply detached or separated from the others.” I also learned that legato is its comparable opposite, which is played “in a smooth, flowing manner without breaks between notes”
For a more vivid description, think of someone in high heels walking down a hallway or flight of stairs, step-by-step. The sharp, disconnected sounds are what you might call a staccato.
Today’s title and blogpost is drawn from three life events: multiple hats, revived dreams, and staccatos, all of which have become distinct markers of my so-called adult life. Stay with me.
Multiple Hats
More than ever, 2021 dealt me many hats, some I discarded, some I wore, and some, I’m still trying to wear. If I could take a guess, I’ll say this has been the case for you as well. We find ourselves in a series of life events – trying to work on A, having B unexpectedly show up, C calling for your attention, and the list goes on. We’ve seen and met people who are engineers, mothers, entrepreneurs, wives, friends, and board members all at once. Then, we may constantly find ourselves in that unending loop of feeling overwhelmed and sometimes, unable to function excellently in any of these capacities.
Revived Dreams
Consequently, while wearing multiple hats, some dreams may begin to die or fade away. The way it’s happened for me, all it takes is reading my journals, going through old photos, or reading someone else’s story to remember that there’s a dream somewhere waiting to be revived. The prayers and introspections that followed this realization is what led me to staccatos.
Strength of Staccatos
If life could be a type of music, we may all want it to be a legato, where everything’s smooth and connected. On the contrary, we may need to employ the strength of staccatos. What is the one sound I can make right now even though it sounds disconnected from the rest? What is the one thing I can make progress towards today? What do I need to de-prioritize? As James Clear wrote in one of his newsletters,
“Six months from today, what will you wish you had spent time on today?”
James Clear
When I started to feel guilty about being away from my blog for so long, questions like these helped me. I had looked around my life and assessed the many hats I was wearing and had to wear. I knew I could not be effective at everything at the same time. So, I focused on one hat at a time. As believers, sometimes, even in our walk with God, we wear different hats. There is usually, however, a hat that needs more attention that the rest. For example, while I was trying to focus on all the many aspects of my walk with God in the first half of the year, the second half shifted into my “one” thing at a time. In August, for instance, I focused a lot on prayer, making it a duty to make my prayer life better. And it worked! I went into September with a different prayer fire and another “one thing” to focus on.
Today’s blogpost came out of focusing on how to get it done once I was through sorting out something else. Getting the blog running again took its own process. Writing again took its own process. But even more importantly, life is better because of those decisions to do one thing at a time – to take seemingly disconnected steps (staccatos) in order to arrive at a smooth, flowing connection (legatos) at different points in our journeys. And since we’re talking about music too, sometimes throw in your amapiano beats and get dancing!
You have all you need to move the next level of your life. The question however is: what is the one thing you would do today to make tomorrow a reality?
Goodbye Royalty,
With Overflowing Love,
Alexandra Zion.
