SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

There Is No Perfect

...at least not here on earth. In the meantime, here on earth, imperfect earth, there are only two options (neither is perfection): reality and fantasy. The things you actually do enter reality and you benefit from them, even if they're mediocre or imperfect. Some benefit is better than none. Small steps are better than standing still. But when you ignore, delay, procrastinate... nothing is real. Nothing becomes real.

The Myth of Failure

All the possibilities stay in the realm of fantasy, and you're stuck there, a prisoner to all the things that might happen. The fantasy of failure and the fantasy of success are equally unproductive and equally unlikely as long as you sit.
But if you take small steps, tiny steps, make daily efforts toward success? Even when you mess up, you're still bringing some measure of success into reality. And that's when you start seeing failure as it is: a myth.
The only real failure is the failure to move, to try, to risk, to work.

Quit Setting Ho-Hum Goals

If your goals were such that you knew you could reach immediate and perfect success in them, they wouldn't be very inspiring, would they?
Big goals inspire us to take on big challenges, face big fears, do more, be more than we knew we could. But you don't get that sitting still. Sit still on anything and you'll stay the same, while things around you slowly, surely deteriorate.
Something you'll accomplish immediately and perfectly isn't worthy of being called a goal. It's an item on our to-do list. Do it and then find something bigger, scarier, riskier, more exciting, more rewarding for a real goal. "You must do the thing you think you cannot do," said Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.

You Have No Idea What You're Capable Of

The truth is, you have no idea what you're capable of and almost every one of us estimates far, far too low. We were made in the image of God! The dreams and goals we have - both the ones we cherish and the ones forced upon us by circumstances - are God's way of waking us up to our own potential. It's like His hand is on your shoulder, shaking you awake, saying, "Come on, this will be fun! You can do this! I wouldn't ask you to if you couldn't."
And you can either jump up and follow Him and try and see yourself succeed, or you can clench your eyes shut, hide under the covers, and rot.

Your call.

"Oh, hmm, well, I guess I'll take the rotting option. Yeah. That sounds peachy."
Okay... have fun with that, really. Me? I'm getting out of bed. I'm awake, I'm interested, I'm ready. My motto: "Find something I can't do. I DARE you."

You Can't... Unless You Want To

Are there things I can't do? Sure! Lots of them. And I'll find them, but for every one thing I find that I can't, I'll find a hundred that I can.
I've gotten a lot of "You can't" messages in life. We all do, because the world is looking for the lowest common denominator. It's a way of making every lazy, fearful person feel better about sticking their heads under a pillow instead of living. We measure ourselves by each other (even though that's a silly thing to do).
You can listen to the messages of a society which has obviously and repeatedly proved its own lack of intelligence. If that's where you go for your guide to life... well, you'll have a socially acceptable, ho-hum-boring life. You won't be a mover and a shaker, a trend-setter, a record-breaker. You won't inspire or enlighten or challenge. You'll be just another individual in the mass of individuals who want nothing more than to hide their individuality. Enjoy.
You might want to invest in a better mattress because you'll be spending a lot of time in it.

Or.

Or. That's the best two-letter word in the English language, don't you think?
Or.
Or you can take all the "you-can't" lines you've been given and throw them out the window.
"You can't have a happy marriage." (But I do!)
"You can't have a baby at home." (But I did, three of them, in fact.)
"You can't survive on one income." (But we are!)
"You can't make it without health insurance." (But here we are, healthy.)
"You can't find time to write while you're a Mom."
"You can't get out of debt."
"You can't be happy."
"You can't be faithful to your spouse."
"You can't find good friends."
"You can't accomplish big things without money."
"You can't own a business."
"You can't finish school."
"You can't make a decision."
"You can't succeed."
"You can't write a book."
"You can't change."
"You can't make money at the work you love."
"You can't, you can't, you can't...".
What are the "you-can'ts" in your world? I have one final sentence for you, the only "you-can't" worth using:
"You can't tell me what to do."

They're Just Little Obstacles

Most of the reasons that "you can't" do not actually touch the reason why you should. They're not really reasons for failure. They're just excuses for other people who are scared. They're just little obstacles to your inevitable success. Step over them. Step around them. Build a bridge. Keep moving!

Refuse to be the lowest common denominator. Refuse to be anything but the full breadth of your potential.
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Image courtesy of notsogoodphotography.

The Lord takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.

Commit to your own success.

Shoot for the highest possible goal.

Take yourself seriously.

Get rid of the physical irritations: do it.
Face the fear of success: overcome it.

Let go of things that don't belong to you.

Be enthusiastic! Overzealous! Passionate! Annoying! Go for it!
You're not just like everybody else.

You're not a cynic; you're a dreamer.

Dream without reservation.
Write without hearing the critic's voice.
Act without questioning your ability.
Be true and real and honest.
If it isn't working, kill it.

Start over. Commit.

Dream. Speak your dreams.
Believe. Reach. Don't stop.
Failure is not inevitable. Obstacles are part of the process.

With diligence, success IS inevitable.

Image courtesy of Shoes on Wire.

The world is full of too many possibilities. We can never grasp them all. We are inadequate for everything but able still to conquer more than we think. We must let go of paralysis, fear, anxiety, self-consciousness.

We get distracted. We blind ourselves staring into the sun, but the sun isn't our aim. The world is full of obstacles and we spend too much time avoiding them. Challenges make us alive. Comfort, too much of it, deadens our senses. We need the zest, the thrill, the hurt of sweat dripping off our noses and muscles tight from exertion. We need the pain of a hard chair and tiredness of a night staying up too late writing another page, and then another, and then another, and then another.

We need hard work, because we shun hard work as a culture. Our goals are to ease the pain of work, and in so focusing on the part that is painful we lose sight of the sheer pleasure of exertion toward an admirable goal.

Work is brilliant. Work is beautiful. Work is our life. Healthy, rightful play is work. We have, most of us, even forgotten how to play well. Instead we seek to be amused, which is not active involvement but passive reception.

We listen to music rather than make it. We pretend our exploits via video games rather than attempt them. We watch others live and laugh and hurt and love and conquer and die on the movie screen rather than walk outside and take the risk ourselves. We detach ourselves from life by engaging ourselves in non-life, in imitations of life: ear phones, cell phones, computer screens, chat rooms, social pages, news feeds, blog posts, newspapers, radio, streaming music, youtube videos, texting, messaging, uploading, downloading, saving, reformatting, watching not a bird or a real person but an actor, listening not to the wind or the waves or the sound of a voice next to us, something real, but to a recording of something real.

None of these things are bad, but it is bad that they have become all that we are. We define ourselves on-line rather than in life. We spend more time thinking of a cute status update or a great tag line on our blog than we do thinking of a sister's birthday gift or a conversation with a friend. We are so busy recording life into pixelated pieces that we are neglecting to live it.

The trouble isn't technology, it is human laziness and apathy and the ease with which we roll into the rut beside us. This problem was around long before the computers lit up, and it will continue to be around long after the next fifteen thousand technologies come and go. We can lose ourselves in anything that amuses, entertains, swallows us up without providing any value.

We call it leisure but it is not; it does not refresh or rejuvenate us, it drains us of energy and leaves us blinking and yawning. It is the feeling of stepping out of the movie theater into the bright afternoon sun, surprised to find that a whole world has been happening while we were lost in another. One is real, one is not. There is nothing wrong with make-believe. We need pretend, fantasy, and ways to escape. But we need a life to escape from, not just a series of trap doors leading from one escape route to another. This is why entertainment fails to entertain us: we have too much of it. We have no contrast. Everything is technicolor.

The cost is life. We fill up our space with too many little things and then we are too busy running around trying to keep them all connected, putting them in place, keeping up with them, taking advantage of our advantages. We end up worn out by our own luxuries. A lot less of everything is what we need.

Less food to choose from might help us to enjoy our daily bread without wishing we had gone to the other restaurant instead.

It's easy to get focused on the wrong things. The world is fighting for your focus, and if you forget you are in a battle, it will be easy to get distracted. If you allow the world to grab and hold your attention, then you'll spend hours listening to and thinking about the world's messages - instead of God's - and as a result, you won't be able to do what you really want and need to do ( How to Be Your Best When You Feel Your Worst, Casey Treat, pp 34-35).

The ache we feel in our chests, the dissatisfaction with where we are and what we have, the urge that sends us to the mall, to the Internet, to the television or the club or the movie or the concert is not for something more to see or hear or buy or experience. The ache is to do, to produce, to be valuable.

Some of us are realizing that, and we see the results in all sorts of wonderful ways: backyard gardens, home made loaves of bread and preserved fruit, carefully crafted quilts, reinvented vintage clothes, entire marketplaces of hand made offerings from jewelry to toys to furniture to art.

Some of us are still caught in a culture that has yet to slow down enough to acknowledge the ache for what it is. Don't let yourself be one of those. Don't let the quick urgent pull of purchasing blind you to the deeper satisfaction of being a producer more than you are a consumer. Add more value to the world than you take away. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable (as you will be if you resist the culture even a small bit) and you will find your life rising up within you, carrying you further than you knew you could go. That's living.

Part 3 of the series: The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan

Having 3 kids under 3 forces you into being a simplicity guru. It's not a matter of preference but survival. As I burp my one-month-old and browse for writing jobs with my free hand, I realize something that is, for me, profound: having too many goals is just as deadly as having no goals at all.

Goals should bring freedom.

In order to make progress, you must define and limit your goals. Your goals should free you to pursue what matters and to happily ignore what doesn't. That will only happen as you consciously decide what matters right now and what can (or must) be ignored.  If you want to be successful in modern homemaking, mothering, working, entrepreneur-ing (how's that for coining a word?), then you have to Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of the series: "The Get Your Life Together Plan"

Image courtesy of alicepopkorn.

Find out why it matters.

When I need help being consistent, say, with exercise or cutting out soda or eating more salads, I do research. I hope from site to site, reading up on fitness routines, muscle tone, great-looking salad ideas.

And nothing changes.

Then, as I walk the mall, dodging weed-thin teenagers and power-walking Mommies in velour sweats, I catch my own reflection. Sharp gasp (my own). Look of horror (my own). That's not me: that's some 30-ish woman who has a mummy tummy and flabby arms and doesn't make that cute shirt look so cute.

I dump my soda in the nearest trash can, go home, and have a big salad for dinner. The next day Read the rest of this entry »

Image Courtesy of color line on Flickr.

I can't resist the urge. I'm addicted to list-making, I love (at least the idea of) change, I'm obsessed with personal growth. Every year I get out my pen and journal and tell myself to be realistic, specific, to make my goals measurable, to not list more things than I can possibly do in fifteen years...

Every year I write way too much stuff down. I generalize. I dream. And I've found that, for me, that's really the point of the whole New Year's resolution writing tradition, anyway.

The Point of Resolutions

It's about the dreams I have. It's about the big goals I may not be able to reach this year, but by writing them down I remind myself to keep moving in that direction. It's about inspiration, and being courageous enough to be honest. There are things I don't like about my life. There are goals I'm not reaching. I can do better. I have failed. I have also succeeded.

My List

I've already made a list for this year. I'll probably add to it on New Year's Day... I can't help myself.

• Quit trying to be self-sufficient. Ask for help. Ask for help often.

• Be honest with God. Admit my needs, my failings, my anger, my problems, and my dreams to God. Spend time in things that nurture my spirit and remind me of God, of truth, of what is important and real.

• Stop trying to figure it all out by myself. Seek wisdom from God and the people He puts in my life.

• Let go of perfection and pride. Hold on to truth. Embrace reality.

• Be more productive by sticking to a schedule.

• Get through our big to-do list. (We wrote out 9 pages on our way home from family holiday visits.)

• Declutter, organize, decorate, simplify our home.

• Exercise regularly.

• Get involved in something creative, hands-on, challenging, fun – away from the computer and the notebook.

• Write fiction.

• Train our children consistently.

• Treat my husband like a king.

• Spend more time with people, less time on lists...

Some of those big resolutions will remain vague ideas, points of inspiration, hopes to stack in the Someday folder. Others – the ones I actually want to achieve within this new year – I will translate into action. I've got a schedule to stick to, for example, to help with # resolution. I've been testing it out for the last few days, getting a jump-start on my new year progress. Oh yes, I am that much of a nerd. (I bet you are, too.)

What Isn't On My List

Money stuff. Not on my list. Sure, I need to be better at budgeting, I need to get more organized with bill-paying, I need to save more and spend less, cancel old credit cards, pay off debt. I know that. I'm already working on it. Joe and I have regular meetings to review our finances and make changes as needed. I'm not burdening myself with any more financially related obligations at this point.

Food stuff, like eating right, not eating out so often, avoiding fast food, buying organic. Yes, I could use improvement in those areas. In the meantime, life continues. I'm making changes in our habits as I can; we're improving slowly but surely. It doesn't have to be on another list.

Go Twirling Into the New Year

I love New Year's Day. I love holidays, in general, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I think that New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are actually the top of the list. Maybe resolutions are overdone, but the whole tradition reminds me that change is possible. Growth is happening. Life is improving. I am making progress in becoming the person I want to be. New Year's Day is like a national celebration of that truth, and sends me twirling into the new year with the assurance of success trailing behind me.

Get In on the Action

You know you want to. Go ahead. Make a huge list of all the best things you can be and do and see and experience and change and enjoy. And look back on your last year and think about what you have been and done and seen and experienced and changed and enjoyed.

Be thankful.

You are alive in a world that does not guarantee life.

You are loved in a time that is full of hatred.

You are accepted in the midst of clashing traditions. You are making it in the middle of economic collapses. You are choosing your way when many people have no choice.

Be joyful.

You are alive. You are loved. You are accepted. You are moving forward. You are choosing to grow, to live, to accept, to love.

Related Material

Spinning the New Year: Resolutions from The Wise (Young) Mommy

Top Ten New Year's Resolutions from About.com

New Year's Resolutions from Restaurant Widow

Have You Made a Difference This Year? from Life Optimizer

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Image Courtesy of color line on Flickr.

I tend toward what is easy. Discipline, pain, sacrifice? I shudder at the thought. Yesterday the sermon was on being spirit-led. Sounds nice, but it was uncomfortable: controlling your appetite, saying no to what you want, realizing that the urge toward what is easy, comfortable, and instantly gratifying is probably the opposite of what spirit-led means.

Everything worthwhile that I have done has required discipline, pain, and sacrifice. Think about pregnancy and birth. Even getting married, candy-coated as that time was, required change, which is always difficult, and leaving behind the old life to begin a new one. Read the rest of this entry »

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a d**n fool about it. W.C. Fields

Challenge Update: And so, with the advice of eloquent Mr. Fields at my back, I call an official end to the experimental month of Life Without a To Do List. I wouldn't call it a failure: I didn't write a to do list for the last 26 days, so I have adhered to the challenge. I wouldn't call it a success: I can't see any significant life improvement. A bit more perspective, perhaps, and understanding of how a to do list can either be useful or a method of extending my control-freakish ways. Perhaps that does make it a success.

March was a strange month, anyway. It was probably the best possible month to forego my usual list addiction; from remodeling projects to plumbing problems to sickness to out-of-town guests to flooding, March has been full of things keeping me from routine. If I had been making to do lists this month, they probably would have been untouched at the end of the day, which would have made me feel even more out of control.

That is what I have learned from this challenge: lists make me feel like I'm in control. Especially when I can accomplish what is on the list. But even when I don't get it all done, it gives me a sense that at least I know what isn't done. I am aware of what waits for me, what is lacking, what must be tackled. Without that list, I feel like I am floating. I may be missing something important. I may have forgotten to pay a bill. I don't know.

Are lists good or bad, then? Both. A list can become a lifeline, when what I really need is an afternoon off or a date with my husband or a chat with my best friend. A list can make me dependent on accomplishing and leave me feeling that without a record of my accomplishments (however insignificant they are), I am unimportant, unrecorded, lost, meaningless.

A list can keep me on track, though, when distractions are everywhere. A list can point me back to my priorities and help me focus on the truly important even when those urgent things are screaming at me. A list can help me reach my goals. It lets me see progress. It also lets me see when I am trying to do too much, if I am willing to look.

After (almost) a month without a list, I am willing to look. I am not willing to write a 20-point list and feel guilty at the end of the day when I haven't accomplished it all. I am not willing to substitute list-making and checking off items for time and conversation and rest. I do want to stay on track, and see progress, and reach goals. So I am stepping back into a life with a to do list, but this time it is a tool and not an end in itself.

Better Life Tip: Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever.
...Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always. Dee Hock

Challenge Update: Yesterday I took some time to plan my week and get it all in my planner, which I have been neglecting to do. Knowing I had a plan made both getting up and staying awake better. It is motivating to have goals but you need more; you need to have a course set for yourself to reach those goals.

Improve Your Life: Take a few minutes each night to review your day and, in a planner or journal, make a simple plan for the next day. It doesn't (and shouldn't be) complicated or dictated by the half-hour, but it helps to have a short to-do list and an order in which to do things.

Be Open-Minded: Most people don't schedule their off-time, such as evening and weekends, with priorities or to-do lists. Some of us don't even really schedule social events; we just wait and see what comes up at the last minute. It's important to relax, but why not plan for things you want to do rather than waiting to see if something you enjoy will spontaneously happen? Try it some night this week or next weekend: plan a specific time for something you want to do, whether it be personal or a family event or a social outing, or just something you want to do at home that keeps getting pushed aside by the more "important" things.