More than Better (Five-Minute-Friday)

I’m going to try to do the Five-Minute-Friday challenges hosted by KateMotaung. Kate gives us a word each Friday and we write something around it, then link up to a common blog post. We write for 5 minutes only, no correcting or revising allowed. Today’s word is “Better.” What a great word for the first FMF challenge of 2019. Not sure if I’ll meet the 500-word challenge within the five minute period, but let’s see what happens.

BEGIN.

Better. We all want to get better, don’t we? We want to be better organizers, better finishers, better at relationships, better at using our time. The list goes on.

Hm. We want to get better, but where do we begin? One thing I think is important is self-assessment. If you don’t know what makes you tick or how you roll, you don’t necessarily understand what your pitfalls are, what holds you back from getting “better.” I’m not sure since I haven’t checked during this five-minute period, but I imagine you can find all sorts of self-assessment questionnaires online, specific to whatever area of life you want to get better in.

I’m not sure what it is within us that gives us this drive to improve. It’s something in our DNA, that desire for excellence or perfection. I do believe that perfection isn’t achievable in this life and there is beauty in a slight flaw. I think, as I reflect on it more, that God put this aspiration within us because He made a perfect world at the beginning and created our desire to get back there. He wants us to remember where we came from.

END.

196 words in five minutes. I’m sure others have done, ahem, better. But that’s not too bad for someone who’s a little rusty and hasn’t done the FMF in some time. There was definitely an urge to edit, though. I mean, this is my authorial blog! I don’t want to put up writing that’s less than my best!

Goins’ 500-word challenge for today is to describe a perfect day in my life. I’ll try to sum that up in the last 140-odd words remaining.

Bradley's Cove, copyright Susan Barclay

Newfoundland. I am 7 years old. My favourite cousin has traveled here with us. He’s 8 years older than I am and doesn’t have much in common with me apart from our grandparents and my mom, but he’s charming and fun to be with. The setting is beautiful, rugged. The sun beats down, the air is fresh and salty, a breeze blows in from the ocean, ruffling the long grasses in the abandoned outport. We spend the day walking into Bradley’s Cove from Western Bay, down to the rocky beaches where we look for interesting rocks and items shrugged off by the ocean. We walk up Dogberry Hill and pick partridgeberries or blueberries, depending on what’s in season. We stroll out to the lighthouse and look for whales. The day is lazy and I’m in the best place with the best company in the world.