Believing Press

At work we have this saying, ‘believing your own press.’

Being members of the press ourselves, we’re all too familiar about the vagaries of saying something, while conveniently omitting other details, whether vital or not. It’s about presenting a pretty picture, and keeping it pretty as much as possible.

After writing the article about Feng Shui, I was starting to wonder myself whether the direction my computer was facing was affecting my productivity. I was in the middle of a severe mental block coupled with a word count half-met and the deadline long past. I used to write (begin believing my own press now) stories, relentlessly, through the wee hours of the night, back in college, when my computer was facing East. Lately, computer facing West at home, and at the office... (Well, I’m not too sure where it’s facing), I seem to find myself gasping for something, anything, except productivity.

So should I move my computer?

“It’ll mean what you want it to,” my sister said. Even though it was said in response to an entirely different topic, it seems equally apt here. (Watch me slide the topic to where the quote was originally intended.)

This is where ‘believing your own press’ comes in. In an attempt to find answers to questions where the solutions aren’t immediately available (or need further analysis, or patience, or both) we’ll foolhardily grasp onto anything that will feed our frustrated curiosity.

As for my question, I myself, am confused as to whether it can be answered by time or the cold hard truth, buried somewhere beneath the all the false hope. Perhaps, like my recent writing block, it’s a matter of giving the current condition a shot. If it fails, then we know what the answer is. Then the heavy lifting can begin.

That is, of course, if I want things back the way they were.