Words by Sam Eldredge
Images by Blaine Eldredge

My life feels cluttered, or, rather, my brain does. You know that feeling when you borrow your friend’s iPhone and their apps are cluttered with unread notifications? You were only trying to use their Google Maps, but you can’t help but notice that they have 2,365 unread emails, 73 notifications from Instagram, Strava, and Podcasts combined, and now you can’t remember where you were trying to go with the maps because you’re so distracted by the notifications. You just want to go in to each app and click everything and clear it all out. Just me?

That’s what my brain can feel like at times. I’ll start on a house project, or dig into work emails, or finally begin to do some creative writing when every random unfinished task starts calling for my attention. I need blinders for my mind.

This feeling is why I love the things that force me into one moment, like going for a run or riding my bike. Everything else is forced to the periphery for 30 minutes. My whole world stops being so complicated and is reduced to breathing. Keep pedaling. Keep running. Ignore the voice that says it’s too hard and I need to stop to catch my breath. That voice isn’t wrong, but it’s also lying: I can push myself just a little bit farther.

It’s the same voice that whispers all my half-finished projects when I try to write, telling me to stop and spackle all the old nail holes in my bedroom or finally organize the garage…again. 

It’s the voice that encourages me to leave all my tabs open on my computer so I can flit from the middle of one task to the next and, well, right now it’s telling me to watch the latest episode of “Fast Life” that dropped on YouTube an hour ago. It’s really inspiring and it’s about cycling so it’ll get me pumped for my workout later today and it’s only 15 minutes so it can’t hurt that much…

Devious little voice.

I love the spaces where it’s easier to focus and shut out the noise because each time I do it I am practicing the act of flow, of fighting off distraction, and it bleeds over into the rest of my life. I want to be the kind of person who gives his full attention to someone when they are talking, the kind of man who finishes house projects, the kind of writer who defends the space set aside for writing, the kind of father who is present to his kids. 

Keep pedaling. Keep running. Ignore the voice.