When I began writing this post, I had something else in mind, but then I digressed and the direction of this post changed, and I just went with it. "Just going with it" it sort of one of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions, so yay me! More on my unofficial New Year's Resolutions later. By the way, I wrote most of this post on my phone in the car. No, I wasn't driving. I even had my phone on airplane mode because I read somewhere that when your phone is on in the car (unless it's on airplane mode) that you expose everyone in the car to terrible radiation. I believe it was compared to putting your head in a microwave and turning on the microwave. More on that another day. That's just a little glimpse of my edgy side for you. There I go digressing again. Let me just get to what I wrote on that day when I was in the car with my phone on airplane mode.
I started writing this blog before I began reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Like divine intervention, I picked up this book one night in December just a few days before Christmas. I didn't start the book until a couple of days before New Year's Eve, and to my delight, I saw that the book was laid out month by month and that the project was basically one gigantic New Year's Resolution. For someone like me who gets excited by structure, I found this to be rather thrilling.
I know what you're thinking, you are messy, but structure excites you? The answer is yes. I am basically a living, breathing oxymoron. I am messy, yet I am neurotic about where things go. I am unorganized, yet I want things done a certain way. I think structure that is created by others helps me because I am unable to create it myself or if I do create it, then maintaining it is a huge challenge for me. I have spent countless hours of my life trying to create schedules, routines, and budgets. My attempt at structure is often overkill. I make things so complicated that I give up because it's just too much. When I tried to create a budget for my husband and me, I made so many charts and procedures that "had to be followed" that after about a month - or less - I threw the entire plan out the window. This happened multiple times. Needless to say, our money situation has not improved much. Budgeting is one of those things that I keep telling myself I will get better at with age. Cooking is another one of those things. You know, I'll get around to it when I am finally a grown-up. Because when you are in your mid-thirties, you are not really a grown-up. Not yet. Not really. I am probably the most unorganized person with the most "Type A" tendencies that you will ever meet. Doesn't that sentence alone make me sound like a good time?
Back to The Happiness Project. Had I tried to start this book in the middle of the year, my Type A personality would have kicked in big time. To be honest, I would have probably gotten frustrated that my calendar was not lining up with the book, and so I would have put the book on hold until the next new year. And then 2017 would come and I would have probably forgotten about the book or my desire to read the book would have passed, and I would have missed the opportunity to read a really great book. This makes me wonder how many other great opportunities I have missed due to my Type A tendencies. There's another thought for another day. Look at me, I am creating my list of ideas for future posts right here. Perhaps "staying focused" should be another unofficial resolution. Bottom line, I would much rather follow Gretchen's journey month by month during the actual month for which the chapter was intended. Is this necessary? Absolutely not. But for me, that is what I need to do in order to fully enjoy the book. So lucky for me, I started the book just in time.
This is just one small example of my Type A tendencies. The truth is, my tendencies create many obstacles in my life. When I want to do something, I want to "do it the right way" (whatever that means), and I aim for such perfection and get so caught up in the minute details that I lose sight of the big picture. I swear, the saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees," was written for me. (By the way, I just learned that the actual saying is "for the trees" and not "through the trees.") The reality is, striving for such perfection and exploring every last detail is just exhausting - not to mention frustrating and confusing. The end result? I often give up. I quit. I mean, if I can't do it "the right way," then why do it at all? And that, my friends, is the classic rationale of a quitter.
When I think about all of the things I never explored, it makes me rather sad. Like budgeting, my overplanning has led me to give up on other things like research projects, exercise regimens, cleaning schedules - you get the idea. Other times, I have given up because I wanted perfection and yet the idea of achieving that perfection was just too much. This happened to me when I attempted to start a blog a little more than two years ago. Cooking intimidates me because I don't want to cook something that isn't good and if isn't good, what a waste of time that would be! (Not to mention the mess I would have created, and cleaning is not my strong suit.) I have a snowboard and a guitar sitting in my basement that I haven't touched in years. I quit tennis because I was terrified of messing up in front of people. Are you seeing a pattern here? In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert describes perfectionism as "fear in fancy shoes." I love this. It could not be more true. When I read this, I can see myself sitting there saying, "No, I'm not scared. I am just a perfectionist." As it turns out, it's the perfectionist who is the biggest scaredy-cat of all.
In addition to being a perfectionist, I always thought of myself as a rule follower. If you don't follow the rules, you will suffer the consequences, and you deserve every consequence that you get. The funny thing is, when I think about it, I am often finding that although I follow rules, I do bend them an awful lot, and I always have excuses and justifications for why it is okay for me to do that and why the consequences should not be applied to me (after all I sort of followed the rules). Rules and explicit instructions on how to do things always seemed like my best friends. If something is open for interpretation, I will desperately find a way to define it so that I know exactly how to deal with it. I get hung up on points that are not crystal clear. If you happen to be close by when I am reading a recipe or an instruction manual, you will hear me cry out, "But what do they mean???" as I can almost always find something that is unclear or poorly defined (at least in my mind). If I can understand and define something, then I can put it in one of the many boxes that I have built over the years. If I don't have a box for something, well then, I don't like it and I do everything I can to get rid of that thing in my life or to try to change it so that I can force it to fit in one of my boxes. That's. Not. Very. Cool. I always thought of myself as open-minded, but seriously? This does not sound like the mindset of a very open person. Nor does it sound very healthy. I mean, who wants to live a life among a whole bunch of boxes, anyway?
And let's reflect for a moment on whether my current ways are working for me. For someone who claims to require such order, I am so unorganized that it seems laughable that I could ever demand such structure from others. My home and office are packed full of things that I think I need that it's to the point that I can't find many of the few things that are actually truly important. I am late for everything almost always. My mind is so scattered that I often start a million things and finish none. I am impatient and easily agitated. I spend a lot of my time worrying about things that I have no control over and fearing the terrible things that could happen. So no, I would say my current ways are not working for me.
Is it possible that my yearning for rules and explicit instructions was because it gave me an easy way out? I mean, if you tell me what I'm allowed to do and how to do it, well, I don' t really need to think, do I? If I do what I'm told and if I "do it right" then I am successful, and if I "can't do it right" then I quit. I either do it the way I'm supposed to, or I don't do it at all. But is it possible, just maybe, that I could be missing out on something really great if only I was a bit more flexible? What would happen if I stopped following rules? Of course, I am not talking about all rules. I will continue to be a law abiding citizen, I will continue to listen to our doctors, and I will continue to follow the policies that are required of me in my job. But when it comes to my personal life, what if I followed my heart a little more and the rules a little less?
With it being a new year, this sounds like a pretty cool resolution. But I'm not really doing official resolutions this year. Do you remember a couple of years ago when, rather than making resolutions, people selected one word to represent what they wanted to focus on in the new year? I am pretty sure people are still doing this. Well, I am not doing that. Instead of one word, I am creating my own personal New Year's Mantra for 2016.
Release, create, and be curious.
Release what I do not need.
Create what my heart desires.
Be curious about what will be.
I will break this down at a later time, but for now, I want to just sit with this.
Like Gretchen's Happiness Project, this will be my own personal New Year's project using these five books (and any other books, blogs, articles, etc., that speak to me in 2016) as my guide.
I am not sure what I will call my project. For now, I will call it: A Year of Curiosity.
Considering it is now January 20, and I started writing this in the car on New Year's Eve on the way to my parent's house (again, I wasn't the one driving), I think it is time that I hit the Publish button. My intention was to get this out during the first week of the new year, but here we are now in the second half of January. But because some of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions include being more flexible and more forgiving of myself, I am letting that go. Better late than never.
When I think about all of the things I never explored, it makes me rather sad. Like budgeting, my overplanning has led me to give up on other things like research projects, exercise regimens, cleaning schedules - you get the idea. Other times, I have given up because I wanted perfection and yet the idea of achieving that perfection was just too much. This happened to me when I attempted to start a blog a little more than two years ago. Cooking intimidates me because I don't want to cook something that isn't good and if isn't good, what a waste of time that would be! (Not to mention the mess I would have created, and cleaning is not my strong suit.) I have a snowboard and a guitar sitting in my basement that I haven't touched in years. I quit tennis because I was terrified of messing up in front of people. Are you seeing a pattern here? In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert describes perfectionism as "fear in fancy shoes." I love this. It could not be more true. When I read this, I can see myself sitting there saying, "No, I'm not scared. I am just a perfectionist." As it turns out, it's the perfectionist who is the biggest scaredy-cat of all.
In addition to being a perfectionist, I always thought of myself as a rule follower. If you don't follow the rules, you will suffer the consequences, and you deserve every consequence that you get. The funny thing is, when I think about it, I am often finding that although I follow rules, I do bend them an awful lot, and I always have excuses and justifications for why it is okay for me to do that and why the consequences should not be applied to me (after all I sort of followed the rules). Rules and explicit instructions on how to do things always seemed like my best friends. If something is open for interpretation, I will desperately find a way to define it so that I know exactly how to deal with it. I get hung up on points that are not crystal clear. If you happen to be close by when I am reading a recipe or an instruction manual, you will hear me cry out, "But what do they mean???" as I can almost always find something that is unclear or poorly defined (at least in my mind). If I can understand and define something, then I can put it in one of the many boxes that I have built over the years. If I don't have a box for something, well then, I don't like it and I do everything I can to get rid of that thing in my life or to try to change it so that I can force it to fit in one of my boxes. That's. Not. Very. Cool. I always thought of myself as open-minded, but seriously? This does not sound like the mindset of a very open person. Nor does it sound very healthy. I mean, who wants to live a life among a whole bunch of boxes, anyway?
And let's reflect for a moment on whether my current ways are working for me. For someone who claims to require such order, I am so unorganized that it seems laughable that I could ever demand such structure from others. My home and office are packed full of things that I think I need that it's to the point that I can't find many of the few things that are actually truly important. I am late for everything almost always. My mind is so scattered that I often start a million things and finish none. I am impatient and easily agitated. I spend a lot of my time worrying about things that I have no control over and fearing the terrible things that could happen. So no, I would say my current ways are not working for me.
Is it possible that my yearning for rules and explicit instructions was because it gave me an easy way out? I mean, if you tell me what I'm allowed to do and how to do it, well, I don' t really need to think, do I? If I do what I'm told and if I "do it right" then I am successful, and if I "can't do it right" then I quit. I either do it the way I'm supposed to, or I don't do it at all. But is it possible, just maybe, that I could be missing out on something really great if only I was a bit more flexible? What would happen if I stopped following rules? Of course, I am not talking about all rules. I will continue to be a law abiding citizen, I will continue to listen to our doctors, and I will continue to follow the policies that are required of me in my job. But when it comes to my personal life, what if I followed my heart a little more and the rules a little less?
With it being a new year, this sounds like a pretty cool resolution. But I'm not really doing official resolutions this year. Do you remember a couple of years ago when, rather than making resolutions, people selected one word to represent what they wanted to focus on in the new year? I am pretty sure people are still doing this. Well, I am not doing that. Instead of one word, I am creating my own personal New Year's Mantra for 2016.
Release, create, and be curious.
Release what I do not need.
Create what my heart desires.
Be curious about what will be.
I will break this down at a later time, but for now, I want to just sit with this.
Like Gretchen's Happiness Project, this will be my own personal New Year's project using these five books (and any other books, blogs, articles, etc., that speak to me in 2016) as my guide.
I am not sure what I will call my project. For now, I will call it: A Year of Curiosity.
Considering it is now January 20, and I started writing this in the car on New Year's Eve on the way to my parent's house (again, I wasn't the one driving), I think it is time that I hit the Publish button. My intention was to get this out during the first week of the new year, but here we are now in the second half of January. But because some of my unofficial New Year's Resolutions include being more flexible and more forgiving of myself, I am letting that go. Better late than never.
