9/23/2016

Be the boss of myself


The other day I received a thoughtful gift, but because of my new life philosophy of not keeping things unless I love them, even (or especially) if they were free or gifted.

It was a super thoughtful gift, something that's useful for a particular thing I actually really enjoy, but I didn't want to own this object; it only served a few purposes, and I didn't particularly care for the aesthetic.

The item was about $36 and Amazon was going to charge me $6 for the return shipping if I used the UPS label they provide. It sucked to see that deduction, so I dilly-dallied for a moment, considering the pay-my-own-shipping route, or figuring out another way to off-load this gift in an "economical" way. After letting myself analyze for about one to two minutes, I cut myself off and told myself that I needed to "be the boss of myself." 

As part of this new season of my life, I'm trying to act the way I want to feel. Sitting in front of the screen, I said to myself, "In this moment, I'm going to act like my time is worth $100/hr." I didn't want to spend any more of my precious time debating how to minimize the $6 loss of returning it. If I spent even two minutes on the thinking, and my time is worth $100/hr, that was $3.33 right there. If I spent even two more minutes debating, I would have exceeded the perceived $6 loss I was trying to avoid.

And this was for a gift that I didn't spend any money buying in the first place. I felt so grown up being able to:

1) Receive the gift with gratitude.
2) Decide quickly to return it because I didn't want/need it.
3) Let myself do my analyzing thing. I can't help myself.
4) Stop myself from doing my analyzing thing for too long. .
5) Move on with life.

Ultimately I chose to value my life more than money

One of the paradoxes of adulthood is the concept of being the boss of yourself, which necessarily means you are both the boss and the one being bossed around. 

Is this hard or is this easy?

When you're the boss of yourself you can do handstands at home. #leanagainst
Prompts for the Studious, or, A shameless call for comments:
1) What are your thoughts on the concept of waiting for permission?
2) What do you want right now in life that you are waiting for permission for?
3) What are some paradoxes you're pondering?
4) Anything else that stuck out to you?
5) Can you tell that I used to be a Bible study leader for a campus ministry?

More from me:

9/21/2016

First-world hungry

first-world hungry = being hungry, but not for anything I have in my fridge

"Give me neither poverty nor riches. . .
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you,
and say, 'Who is the Lord?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God."
--Proverbs 30:8-9

David once mentioned to me that one of the signs of poverty in first-world countries is, perhaps unexpectedly, obesity.

While I don't want to get too much into social commentary here as I am not well studied on the topic, I do think it's a good launching point for the metaphor of the kind of stuff-obesity we fall prey to in our modern day first-world lives.

When we don't have enough quality in our lives, we may substitute quantity to make up for the feelings of poverty. It's easy to grab at every opportunity that comes our way when we're afraid of not getting opportunities in the future.

In an essay I wrote for my workshop group, I talked about how there was once a time not too long ago when, ironically, we couldn't afford to "declutter." 

I spent a lot of the first years of our marriage in a poverty mentality, even if it was just first-world poverty. (I'm careful here to say "I" because David is so much more above me.) I would ask David to cut the baby wipe packages in half and save pour-overs for the weekends because coffee filters cost $0.02 each.

Now that David's career is more stabilized I've felt free to let go of some things and in doing so I've had to confront a lot of my fears and the shame of having a scarcity mentality (c.f., once again, The Secret Sauce). 

***

I'm wrestling with the paradox that sometimes you need enough to get more. (This could probably be its own post one day.)

You need emotional resilience in order to grow. So when you're in a place of stuckness, how do you get momentum?

***

We once laughed at a pamphlet that came with some outdoor gear Kenny had purchased. In addition to instructions regarding the gear, the author of this little manual tried to provide the user with further instructions on survival, something I guess they thought might be relevant for the person who made the purchase. "Do not wait until you are without water to begin looking for water," it read. 

We guffawed*, but how often do we actually do this in life? And, to take this further, we could also say that the "opposite" of this is good advice, too: "Do not wait until you are drowning to begin asking for help." 

(*That was for you, Molly.)

I'm not drowning any more, though I have been there. Still, I'm realizing I need yet more margin. In particular, I'm seeing the value of having enough margin that I can make mistakes. If I want to live a brave and creative life, it will involve making mistakes.

(Molly {again}, fear not, I said "margin", not "margarine".)

***

On an unrelated train of thought...



Addenda, or Other Ramblings:

1. Wealth is the feeling of using or needing less than you are bringing in. I think we all know that living hand to mouth is no good, and that the "secret" to financial wealth is to spend less than you make (or, alternately, to make way more than you spend). But how often to we apply that to life? We want to fill our every moment with getting stuff done. What we if intentionally chose to spend less time than we have been granted? (Sabbath? We've been given seven days, and by choosing to not exhaust all seven days with work, we perhaps store up life-wealth.)

2. Another nugget I'm loving from Essentialism is the idea of shaping your life by design rather than be defaultMarie Kondo also talks about this when she mentions how it's easy to hold on to things we've been given (either as gifts or hand-me-downs) but that there are ways to let go of even those things, too, if you so desire. Similarly, with life opportunities, just like we should prioritize our own lives instead of letting others prioritize them for us, we should - for our own sake, and for the sake of making our greatest contribution to the world - think hard about designing our lives with intention - proactively, rather than reactively.

9/12/2016

Less, but better

"I'm going to donate these clothes I don't wear anymore to charity 
after I drive them around in the trunk of my car for eight months." 
--@amydillon

Sunk costs are one of the hardest things for me to let go of, and what made (and makes) KonMari so hard for me. 

Kenny, Whiz At Anything And Everything He Puts His Mind To, can often be found working on a computer that seems beyond repair, or trying to invent a solution to something that's never been done before. I love when, after many hours at something, he looks up from his project to tell us, "I've worked too hard for this not to work."

Kenny is perhaps the exception to the rule of sunk costs. But for the rest of us, while determination and contentment are good virtues, sometimes we just need to let it go.

Even now, if and when I find I'm not enjoying a book, I just stop. reading. it. (Gasp.) I'm not in school anymore (except for the School of Lisa), so who cares?

In EssentialismGreg McKeown provides a way to assess sunk costs from a different angle by having us ask, "If I did not have [fill-in-the-blank] already, how much would I pay to have it?" If the answer is zero, then you should probably get rid of it.

I think we sorely underestimate the weight of the "trivial many" (McKeown's term) that we keep in our lives. We think that these little things aren't that big of a deal, but they can add up to a larger cumulative effect, one that could even drive you insane.

But you wouldn't know it until you removed them all, ruthlessly and entirely.

This is why and how KonMari actually worked for me. When I first read the book, I didn't buy it (literally or figuratively). But many months later I picked it up and for some reason it was different. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

I followed the prescription to start with clothes. I pulled out everything I had and asked myself if I loved the item (or if it "sparked joy"). Her method makes sense. When we get dressed in the morning, we don't dress "logically" - we don't wear the clothes we "think we ought to" wear, we wear the clothes that make us feel good. 

Because I'm a Questioner, I had to trick myself into the process. I didn't mentally commit to getting rid of the doesn't-spark-joy pile right away. But when I saw how happy I was with the remaining few, it was so much easier to clear away the "trivial many."

I applied this later to our silverware drawing by removing a few "blah" pieces. The simple joy of not having to dig past those anymore has increased my sanity by a seemingly disproportionate amount. 

Taking care of stuff is already hard. Taking care of stuff you dislike (or even feel neutral about) is tiresome.

Do you like your "darlings" enough to dilute that which you truly love? (I use the word "darlings" because the same thing applies to writing, which is why I've been loving how much writing is helping my brain flow. Combinatory play at work, once again.)

When I create margin in my life to have/do the things that are supremely important to me, I find that satisfaction and fulfillment so rich that I no longer care about the other things I once thought were important to me. In fact, I find how much I've actually medicated (!) with the "trivial many" because I've neglected the critical. 

I've been loving the journey I'm on because it's not decluttering for decluttering's sake, or because it's trendy to be a minimalist (that kind of thing does not appeal to a Questioner/Rebel) but because decluttering/curating my life has helped me celebrate my uniqueness, my quirks, and perhaps eventually, even my Purpose. 

9/08/2016

Nothing to keep me in check

You'd think the pressure would be off, now that my project is officially over, but actually feels more intense on this first day "off." I have nothing to keep me in check, except faith in myself, if I am the secret sauce.

So can we just let Anne Lamott do the talking today?

I couldn't sleep last night so I made two slices of toast and picked up Bird by Bird, in which she has already said what I set out to say yesterday:

"Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do---the actual art of writing---turns out to be the best part. . . . The act of writing turns out to be its own reward." (xxvi)

***

I finally started Essentialism. Um, it's amazing. It's essentially Konmari for your life (pun unintended), if you didn't already make the leap yourself. The audiobook version arrived first from my list of library holds so I'm indulging in listening to the author read it in his British accent, as if the words themselves weren't convincing enough.

He puts so well the conundrum of today's society: that we have so many options it's hard to make the right choices. And when we choose not to choose we end up with more but not betterWe can have anything, but probably not everything.

I can't recommend it enough.

9/07/2016

20. Anti-climactic?


In Better Than Before, Rubin talks about tailoring your rewards for your habits to your habit. Rather than sabotaging your goals by saying things like, "when I lose 10 pounds, I'll reward myself with a piece of chocolate cake" she suggests that you come up with rewards that encourage you to continue your habits. For example, in this case the reward could be nice exercise clothes that you love, or a new set of knives that make cooking at home easier. One company she referenced did something that made me chuckle. They rewarded employees who used the employee gym 75 times in a year with a free membership the following year. Your reward is more exercise!

I mention this because when I told David last night that I'd be finishing my project today we talked about what my reward should be. Without missing a beat, he said, "Your reward is five more blog posts!" It's true though, the best habits are when the reward is the habit itself. I have loved getting to write more, having an outlet that has nothing to do with my kids or with anything, with no pressures except myself. I have learned more about myself and I have increased my hope and energy for life.

So my reward for writing is that I'm going to write more. Anti-climactic, right? Or is it? (Cue ominous music.) Anyhoo, I'm still completely on the fence about whether I will write on the same schedule or less frequently. I am slightly freaked out that going to not-everyday will make me lose the habit. There are still other creative things I want to do, so I'll have to figure that out. For example, you've noticed I haven't posted many recipes lately because I've been writing, not cooking, duh. And you can't see my family because they've grown so thin from the lack of food around here.

My friend Christine has been one of my inspirations and I might try her pattern of either MWF or TTh. The main thing is carving out time for pursuing creative passions (and/or vocation/vacation and non-conformity) every single day. However much or little I post here, I'll plan to check-in in a month about how I feel about my new rhythm.

Writing and posting here shall be a sort of accountability that I'm keeping up with any and all of these things. Either way, thank you to all of you for following along on my journey and being a wonderfully supportive audience! I'll keep up with some regularity as best as I can.

I don't think I mentioned this quote from the podcast I praised so highly at the beginning of my project. Brown and Gilbert (ooh going to last names now to shake things up) propose changing the question, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" to "What would you do, even if you knew you might fail?" In other words, "What's worth doing even if I fail?" I think for me the answer to the question at least today, is just to keep trying, exploring, and being curious. Super broad and vague but I'm embracing that.

I'm very intrigued by the concept raised in Rubin's book, being a "data point of one," but nonetheless "a very convincing data point." The project I created here was so random, almost ex nihilo, but I am stunned by everything I discovered in pursuing this thirty day (but twenty posts) project.

So now that I've reached my goal, can I have some fruit tart?

9/06/2016

19. Joy vs. gratitude


Remember how I told you that I had set a goal to wake up earlier every morning? Well, ever since reading Better Than Before I changed that goal from waking up at a certain time to flossing and brushing my teeth at 9 pm, with hardly any regard to a set bedtime or waketime. However, we've incidentally gone to bed earlier as a result, closer to 10:10 p.m. rather than anywhere between 10:40 and 11:30, and I think I'm getting up earlier and happier as well too! I think for the Questioner/Rebel that I am, I need to feel like I'm not being forced to sleep or wake up at a certain time; however, starting the wind-down process earlier just helps everything move along better.

Anyway, that is not what I am going to talk about today, but it is the perfect transition to what I want to say. Like my friend Kayla, being told that the secret to success in life is waking up early makes me want to punch someone in the face. I feel similarly when I hear people talk about doing a "gratitude journal." Honestly, when someone tells me to feel grateful, that is the LAST thing I want to do.

HOWEVER, thinking about things that make me feel joyful? For me that's totally different. Gratitude feels like an obligation, something I owe to someone. Joy, on the other hand, seems to focus, if somewhat selfishly, on the nature of being the recipient of a gift.

While some have argued that practicing gratitude leads to feeling joyful (and I'm loathe to disagree with the amazing, perfect, blessed Brené who argues this point), I want to take a risk here in positing the opposite: that focusing on your feelings of joy could also make you grateful.

This, granted, is different that pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake, which we all know will not lead to a fulfilling life. Rather, I'm challenging the notion that when we feel sucky, trying to make ourselves feel better by focusing on the good sometimes just makes us feel more crappy. For example, when I had postpartum depression after my first baby, I constantly felt guilted by the fact that I was not happy even though I had a *really* easy baby, and even that I had a baby at all! (It goes without saying that there are so many women who desperately want children but can't have them, for various reasons.) I felt guilty for not being grateful enough, and really just not being enough, period.

My friend Maria was able to be with me during some of the early days of this and I remember her just hanging out with me and binge-watching shows on Netflix when the baby was napping. When she went back to New York, she texted me to check on me and to make sure that I had finished watching my "assigned" episodes for the day. Never before had I ever have let myself watch that much TV, but it was the one thing I could do, and being able to check it off my list kept me afloat.

Paying attention to moments of joy - no matter how minuscule - is like tuning into the grace that despite all the crap in life, my heart can feel glimpses of light amidst despair, even if they are just gentle whispers of hope, of possibility.

Maybe it's just a semantics thing. Perhaps what the experts are saying is that joy is a gift and that gratitude is an exercise/discipline. You practice the discipline, you receive the gift. You put your sail up (practicing gratitude) and then wind (experiencing joy) blows and moves you. Which, I get. But still, when you're down, who has the energy to put up a sail? Nonetheless, the wind is there, dare I say, the Spirit, and maybe if I can get still enough, I can feel it.

I've never actually done a gratitude journal before so maybe I shouldn't hate on it so much. What I have done is The Prayer of Examen (which is simply asking yourself these two questions: What moment today made me feel most alive? and, When did I feel most drained?). I've found it to be a powerful way to tune into how God made me and usually it helps me get a better focus on my calling/vocation. (If you're interested, I recommend the extremely accessible and very sweet, illustrated book Sleeping with Bread.) I guess my bent is that it's easier for me to focus on what makes me feel alive vs. what I feel grateful for.

I'm having a hard time writing and ending this post because it makes me feel so ungrateful to share that I don't like the feeling of feeling indebted to someone/something. This is reminding me of how the other day my son randomly said, "Thank you to my life", and I jokingly corrected him and told him to say, "Umma, thank you for my life." This may be depressing to read, but there are some days it's hard to be grateful that I've been given a life. But maybe Theo's version of saying "thank you to my life" is like taking ownership of your life. I can look for the moments of joy I already experienced rather than tediously trying to figure out what it was I'm supposed to be grateful for.

Sigh. What say you?



P.S. This post included my first two Amazon affiliate links! I'm not sure what will come of this or how long it will last but I'm following last month's mantra of "Just Start!" Also, not fully sure how to handle disclosures. Molly?

P.P.S. A few other habit-related things I've done since reading BTB: (1) Turned off "badges" on my Mail app so I can't see when I have new e-mails on my phone, thus mostly relegating e-mail to a few designated times throughout the day, (2) Only scroll Instragram once a day, usually first thing in the morning before I get out of bed, another reason to wake up "early", (3) if I see something that needs to be put away, just do it (I'm improving from doing this 3% of the time to maybe 15% of the time; still needs a TON of work, but I'm trying).

9/05/2016

18. The secret sauce


"Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again." 
--Ecclesiastes 11:1

As part of my Konmari spiritual awakening, I'd decided to not let myself have more than one back-up of everything we buy at Costco (e.g, napkins, Clorox wipes, Ziploc bags), even when they go on sale. I used to buy two or three of things when they were on coupon, in case I needed them before the next sale happened. (I'm sure it's all a part of their strategy to have sales at different rates/frequencies to increase your feeling of scarcity.)

My defense was that we'd need those things anyway, and since inflation possibly outpaces interest rates, toilet paper might - from a strictly financial point of view - be a better investment than cold, hard cash in our checking account...?!?!?

But when I started seriously considering the things that made me happy, having a calm and uncrowded house was more important to me than the $2-3 I might save each time I bought something on sale. Also, it was starting to get really packed in our garage (still is) and sometimes I honestly can't find stuff I know we have. Less frustration > saving money ==> sanity > money

I'm definitely grateful for the scrimp-and-save mentality I learned from my immigrant parents, but I'm now nonetheless enjoying experimenting with that in my life.

In a real emergency, being stocked up on things is not going to save me, right?

And if I can be more present and more alive by having less stuff and being less worried, I'll be free to create and generate more whether it be financial or otherwise.

A crazy (to me) example of how this played our recently was with this marinara sauce I discovered at Costco sometime last fall, called Victoria White Linen. We usually make our own sauce but this stuff was good: Old World style and with few ingredients. After trying and loving it, we stocked up and got eight 40 oz (!) jars. I freely cooked with my supply until I stopped seeing it at Costco. I thought it was so bizarre that it disappeared right after it had been promoted. I loved the sauce so much I almost wrote Costco.

For a while I stopped using my precious remaining jars. I was like a crazy Depression lady.

Then, after recently doing Konmari, I thought, This is stupid. (Not as stupid as Costco discontinuing the sauce, but still stupid.) I started using the sauce, even as an act of faith. Faith that there'd be enough. Faith that I could enjoy the sauce and faith that there was enough hope, peace, and resilience in me even if there would eventually be no more sauce.

We enjoyed and savored it, and slowly whittled down our stash to one last jar.

And then just yesterday we were wandering around Costco and to our astonishment we saw it! The people around me must have thought I was a little crazy when I reached out as though seeing an old friend, squealing "Victoria!"

My habits are changing and I'm so glad I didn't waste any of my own precious time mentally complaining about why Costco discontinued the sauce or fearing we'd run out of something good.

And now, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I am the secret sauce.

9/01/2016

17. Keep pedalling

"Habits are a great servant but a bad master" -- Gretchen Rubin's take on Francis Bacon

I suggested on Day 15 that I might wrap up this project when my original commitment comes to a close, but since starting Gretchen Rubin's book about habits on Day 13, I've wondered if giving myself permission to drop this habit will be to my detriment.

It's always a question of balance, of how you achieve the maximum amount of fulfillment with the least amount of effort, as well as having enough but not too much. Have I gotten out of this project what I want? What should I hold on to and what do I need to let go of so I can move on to other things?

When I began my 30 days of blogging (i.e., 20 posts when I give myself weekends off; I know that's confusing, but I made up the rules, and hey, if that was an awkward mistake, I learned something by doing something), I didn't necessarily see it as trying out a habit. But I have come to see that it has very much functioned as a habit; making a decision that removes the decision-making process out of it. I don't have to ask, "Do I feel like writing today?" "Is what I wrote 'good enough' to be posted today?" Nope. That decision has already been made. I'm going to write, I'm going to post.

It's been incredibly freeing.



P.S. Another housekeeping note. I'm realizing that my replies to your comments don't necessarily go to you unless you subscribe to be notified of all comments, and that seems a bit excessive. I've thus been a bit lame about replying in recent days, even though I'd like to be the type of person who responds to all the comments. This might mean I need to figure out another way, or to overhaul the system, or to just text/email you personally if you comment. I just wanted to let you know that I'm aware of the issue and I am thinking about a solution.