photo credit: 50 Watts (formerly A Journey Round My Skull)

You’re actually very strong.

Kind of obnoxiously strong, like those puffed-up body builders. Like Schwarzenegger in his glory days.
Big bulging muscles. Wow. (Don’t get any ideas about wearing a speedo, though.)

You’re capable, and you’re strong.

And so smart.
You doubt yourself, but you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t listen to that negativity.
You can accomplish anything if you will quit listening to those discouraging words and just keep going for it.

Reject your own fears; they don’t even make sense.

If you stick to it, you’ll reach your goals. It’s a struggle. I know, I know. I hear you. It would be easier to settle for something less ambitious. Heck, some days you do settle.

And on the days you don’t settle, you still feel like you’re not even close to hitting the mark.
But you are.

Much closer than you think.

See, I’ve been watching you.

I’m your friend (colleague/acquaintance/coworker/spouse/parent/child/neighbor) and I’m trying to figure you out.

I don’t know why you work at life so hard. I don’t know why you keep choosing to do what isn’t easy. I don’t quite understand what makes you tick, but I’m fascinated by it, so I keep watching.

And I see that you don’t see yourself very well.

You’re doing a great job, you just don’t know it.

You’re holding things together. You’re making progress. You’re growing. You’re learning to appreciate the moment.

You’re living out something deep.

I guess it has to do with your heart, with what you believe, with your ambitions, maybe? I’m not sure. You don’t really talk about yourself that much. You listen. You choose to give yourself. You look past the short-term stress. You handle the tension. You have made it through one crisis after another, and you stayed gracious in the midst of it.

The only thing missing is to realize that you are, actually, succeeding at life. I hope you’ll see that soon, and relax a little. I hope you’ll doubt yourself less. I hope you’ll enjoy the journey more. You may not think you’re strong, but you’ve got strength coming from somewhere.

And it’s amazing to watch.

photo credit: Camdiluv ♥ AmmyLynn

Above all, to be honest.

Above all, to __________. (Fill in the blank with yours. Mine is write.)

It is possible to learn something new, to reinvent, to break old and begin new, to be young and ready and earnest and eager no matter your age, to wake with a spring, with a jump, to run to each day and take it, seized, wring from it the drops of life eternal, ebullient, ethereal, endless.

We don’t have to settle.

Why then, oh why then, do we?

For in the dark, in the early morning, in the alone or in the fervor, possible is not a promise but a literal pain, a weight of obligation, a burden of our own inadequacy. Reality is tough, grim, cold, inviting us just roll over,

just roll over,

just a few more minutes,

just go back to sleep.

Fools. We drown ourselves in half-inch-deep puddles, flail, gasp, die. Done.

All the stories playing in my mind and what do I wait for? Why not stop for ten minutes and write a sketch, a scene, a plot, a word or paragraph or page, why not here a little and there a little, until little by little, line upon line, something builds, becomes more than the sum, exists, grows, is a work, is accomplished, rings, demands, takes a place of its own in the world?

Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t you?

Why wouldn’t we create, do the work, focus, finish, do the thing we dream of doing?

Thoreau called it: Oh life, frittered away in details.

Diapers, dishes, duties done, sleep, and all this we have chosen. We love and embrace and accept the daily fixtures and needs of our life but not at the expense of, the nihilation of, something essential to self, something essential to who we are made to be.

That separate dream. That other desire. That longing that gnaws at the core, demands to be acknowledged. This, too, is part of me. This, too, is important.

No blame. No pointing fingers. No if-only list.

We must refuse to blame time or circumstance or other people for in laying blame, we give away the power to what we blame. Blame means responsibility. Responsibility means authority, power.

My life is my own responsibility, and if I do or do not it is because of what I choose or choose not.

I can get out of bed, I can write even if no one reads, I can write even when I am tired, I can write when it doesn’t make sense, I can write when I’m distracted, I can write for five minutes a day, I can focus, I can choose.

I can build my own life. I can set my house in order. I can make the time. I can push harder. I can let go of the details. I can release what isn’t mine to own. I can quit controlling everything and start controlling myself. I can make a rule, a goal, a priority, a routine, a ritual for what matters.  It is that important.

How?

Do.

For me, sit and write. For you… what?

Planning is too often a downfall. Action is the antidote to it all: procrastination, fear, doubt, confusion, hopelessness, lack, questions, uncertainty, self-incrimination, inadequacy, guilt, worry.

Act, act in the living present.

photo credit: Vitorio Benedetti

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. -Shauna Niequist

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. -Bertrand Russell

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience – waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking. — Gary Paulsen

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. -Robert H. Schuller

photo credit: A6U571N

Things aren’t always easy, or simple, or black and white; it is that last one that causes me the most grief, personally, because I like black-and-white, as in, easily understood, categorized, and labeled as “good” or “bad.” I think in these absolute terms. This is my filter for the world, for my life, for how I parent, how I wife and friend and write and etc.

‘Cept things ain’t always that simple, Charlie Browns.

So much gray! As in, should it be “gray” or “grey”? Does it matter? No.

But there it is, a choice, an option, with no obvious RIGHT answer. The abundance of gray (grey) has been one of the shocks of adulthood.

The other shocker of my adult life has been realizing this:

not everything you learned growing up is true.

I’m not talking about the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus or whether you rejected your parents’ religious and/or political beliefs in favor of something more enlightened. (For the record, I did not reject my parents’ religious beliefs. Or political ones, much. I like them. I believe them. But that’s another story.)

What I am talking about is much more subtle.

It is the things that are not necessarily taught but are simply passed down, assumptions about how the world works and the best way to, oh, make pie crust, or spend money, or how to parent properly and what to wear after Labor Day.
These things are not (usually) consciously relayed to the next generation: they simply are passed down, passed around the table with the green bean casserole, and you pick them up and put them on your plate and eat them and they become part of you.

Until one day you realize that you don’t even like green bean casserole (we are speaking in metaphorical terms now, follow?) or that green bean casserole is much better when it’s made in an entirely different way than your mother used to make it…
And the world rocks back and forth and you stand on very shaky ground.
Everything is uncertain.

assuming the assumptions are good…

Toooooo many of us are still operating under those passed-down assumptions about “how life works” when, really, the assumptions are not working any more. They are not necessarily WRONG but definitely not necessarily RIGHT either.

Confusing principles and preferences

So many of us are confusing principles (i.e. things that ARE absolute and either RIGHT or WRONG) with preferences. We pick up preferences about life, government, churches, cooking, family life, work, clothing, money, and so on from our parents and we go tra-la-la-ing along as if we are ready for anything.
Only: preferences are not universal, transcending space/time/culture. Preferences are fallible. Preferences have to change. Preferences quit working out of context.

2 simple rules

I have two simple rules which have developed into something kind of stable and specific and definite in my head and in how I look at life and how I make decisions and do things.

And, I think, the whole little point of this blog is to kind of pass those rules or ideas on and to help women apply them and quit feeling so freakin’ guilty about everything, and quit operating on preferences and assumptions that simply don’t work for one reason or another, and quit assuming that one way is RIGHT and another is WRONG when, in truth, both are FINE depending… (or both are NOT FINE, depending…).

rule 1: question everything.
rule 2: assume nothing.

Simple, yes?

Of course I don’t mean that every single time you have to make a decision you question every angle of it. I do almost mean it literally about the assumptions, tho’ of course we need some of those to survive, but overall assumptions are just a lazy woman’s way of not having to think or take responsibility and they tend to lead us to error and unpleasant arguments with our spouses.

Questions are good.

They help us figure out where things come from.

Why am I doing this? What is the point? Where is this coming from? Is this a choice or simply a tradition? Where did the tradition come from? Is it good or bad? Is it helpful? What is it supposed to accomplish? Why do I feel like I need to do things this way? Is my way better? Why? Why not try something different? What’s the risk? What’s the principle? Is there a principle, or is this a preference? What’s my preference? Why? Where did it come from?

Questions lead us to new ideas and discoveries and (gasp) truth, which is not – however you might like it to be – usually found in those assumptions of ours, the ones we like to tote around and pull out whenever feeling uncertain.

Truth is timeless.

I believe in absolute truth, truth which does transcend time and space and culture, truth which does not change or have to be replaced or modernized or adapted to a new context.
But I do not believe that everything we think fits into “truth” indeed does. Most of it, in fact, well: not. Fact, maybe, but truth?
And that’s where we get oh-so-overwhelmed-and-confused and that’s where we have conflict and guilt and terrrrrrible things happen. On a personal level, on a national level, so on: when we mix up truth with a) fact or b) opinion, we get goofy, sometimes tragic, results.

All this tirade to say top-ten-tip lists are great and how-to posts are helpful and advice can be nice but the point

THE POINT

is to help me, you, and any other woman who stumbles on this blog’s real estate to have a better life by getting WISE.

Wisdom.

That’s the key.
Wisdom is the ability to separate truth from mere knowledge.

It is the discernment to know facts and yet not be ruled by a pride in that knowledge.

It is the mind to put principles in one pile and preferences in another and use both as they should be used.

It is the will and the understanding to apply knowledge as it should be applied (not dogmatically) and to search out truth and live by it (graciously).

Wisdom is what I am looking for.

I have many goals on earth; many goals for myself and my children; many hopes, ambitions, dreams; but the greatest the deepest the truest is that I will be a woman who is WISE, that I will somehow manage to raise children who seek WISDOM all their lives, and that, through what I write here and elsewhere, I will manage to pass on a bit of that wisdom, or just the thirst for it, to others.

photo credit: The Welsh Poppy

168 Hours, a book by Laura Vanderkam, is one of the best treatments of time management, productivity, and busyness that I’ve ever read.

And I’ve read quite a few books on those topics, being semi-obsessed as I am with, well, time management, productivity, and eliminating busyness so I can just do what matters most.

Step 1: get some expert advice, then follow it.

One thing that Moms and other busy, distracted people can do to start taking action (instead of running around like headless chickens) is to take the advice given by experts to busy professionals and apply it to their own lives.

Sometimes Moms tend to wallow in Mom-oriented advice which, while often entertaining, isn’t always good. When you’re really looking to get down to the important stuff in life and quit wasting time, do you need another primer on making summertime crafts or coming up with a new menu plan? Nah.

There’s a time for those, but first you need to get the basics in order. (Disclosure: for me, there is never really a time for “making summertime crafts.” The closest I come to that is having popsicle eating contests with my kids.)

So, from the expert (Vanderkam, not me), here are four principles (and my accompanying diatribe) that can help you quit wasting time and start taking action.

1. Seize control of your schedule.

You are the master of your own fate. If you want to make excuses and let other people obligate you to do stuff, that’s still your choice. I’d recommend not going that route by learning and using one little word: No. It’s a great word. You can say it nicely, and repeat it often, and it will be very effective.

Another thing you can say is, “Hmmm, I’d love to help you but I’ll need to check my calendar first.” And be sure you don’t check it right then while standing in front of the person. Wait. Give yourself time to really think through whatever request has been made of you: is it important? Does it fit in with your priorities? Do you have any desire to do it? Are you even interested? Does it pertain to life at all? Will it cause you to cut out important things? What do you have to say no to in order to say yes to this request?

Your time belongs to you and only you. What you do with it is up to you and only you. If you choose to be passive and let other people fill up your time, that’s still a choice you’re making.

2. Do not mistake things that look like work for actual work.

Ehhhm, summertime crafts? Not work. Now if you’re into crafts, and that’s something you want to do (with or without your kids), power to you. It’s your choice what you fill your free time with, and it should be stuff you enjoy.
But work is different than hobby, free time, fun time, family time, and so on. Define what work is for you, whether you’re a stay at home Mom or a work at home Mom or not a Mom or whatever. Know your work so you can know what your work isn’t. Know your work so you can make work a priority. Know your work so you can take a break from it.

3. Get rid of non-core-competency tasks by ignoring, minimizing, or outsourcing them.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is good at everything. And nobody has to be.

You may not have the budget to hire help for all the stuff you don’t enjoy/aren’t good at, but you can find ways to make it take less of your time.

• You can streamline your cleaning and housekeeping chores. Lower your standards a little bit. You have other stuff to do. If you get a kick out of cleaning your baseboards monthly, do it. But if not… um. Let it go.
• You can trade off with your spouse. Who says he has to mow the grass and you have to make dinner? What if you’re a rotten cook and he’s an amateur chef? Play to your strengths, people. Everybody will be happier.
• You can quit doing stuff. Not everything is essential. Truly, truly evaluate the things that take up your time and just get rid of stuff. Will your family suffer or the world quake because you choose not to do something? Probably not. Drop stuff that you don’t like and that doesn’t matter; spend time on the better stuff.
• You can hire cheap help. Your own kids, neighborhood kids, students, friends, family members… Set a price on something (painting the bedroom? cleaning out the garage? organizing your paperwork? watching the kids? washing the car? picking out new curtains?) and then find someone who’s willing to do it for that price.

4. Boost efficiency by getting better at what you do.

Read up. Practice. Take a class. Set up routines and systems to enforce your best work patterns. Treat yourself as a professional and invest in the ongoing education you need in order to be the best at what you do, whatever that is.
The people who are most productive are people who are very good at a limited number of things, and who focus on doing those core things. Get very good at what you do, and do more of it.

You know, the challenge in front of you. The one you are facing (unavoidably) or considering. The one that is difficult, kind of inspiring, but intimidating, too. Here’s why you should go for it.

And yet, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and make us better. Only challenge and the self-motivation to engage the challenge will transform us. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more skillful self. So it is up to you to constantly look for challenges to motivate yourself with. And it’s up to you to notice when you’re buried alive in a comfort zone. – Steve Chandler

1. Challenges keep your life from becoming an exercise in boredom.

How exciting is it to do the same (normal) thing every day, to walk the same (comfortable) rut every week? Oooh. Goose bumps. Can hardly contain the excitement. Hold your enthusiasm. Wow, it’s those mundane things that really bring the zest into your life, isn’t it? Um, wait. Maybe not. Shake yourself up. Do something new.

Don’t be boring until you’re dead, and before you die make sure you try all sorts of wacky, impossible things that will give people plenty to talk about at your funeral.

Consider it your gift to a world full of boring people.

2. Challenges help you to grow.

As our friend Mr. Chandler pointed out above, “only challenge causes growth.” And have you heard that other one about when you cease to grow, you begin to die?

3. Challenges show you what you’re capable of.

Struggling with confidence? Burdened by a string of failures in your (recent) past? Not sure what you can do, or even why you would try? The longer you sit around with your self-defeating, fatalistic thoughts, the more you become a pseudo-emo-child and world knows we don’t need any more of those.

Get off your emofied bum and go do something challenging.

4. Challenges help you let go of the old dead stuff you didn’t even realize you were carrying around.

S’true. You have baggage. It might be in terms of old dead habits (they are no longer serving you) or old dead relationships (they are not longer vital, viable, or sustainable) or old dead ways of thinking… or just in terms of physical stuff (clutter = old dead stuff stinking up your space). When you commit to and begin pursuing a new challenge, you start reaching forward.

You put a new priority on the new habits and new relationships and new ways of thinking required to achieve the challenge. As a result, you begin, often unconsciously, letting that old stuff fall away.

And it’s good. You feel lighter, you feel better, and you realize that you didn’t need all that old dead ick infringing on your life.

5. Challenges motivate and inspire other people around you.

Want to help a friend who’s stuck? Do something challenging and share the challenge. DON’T tell her to take on a challenge. Take on one yourself, and let her see your struggle and your success. We all need to move out of the small window of our own view and see a bigger world. You take on a challenge, you expand your own view, and you let the people around you share that. It’s good for everybody.

6. Challenges give you a chance to get closer to who you actually want to be.

Even challenges which seem directly unrelated to your long-term goals or life plan or what-have-you still bring you closer to reaching those goals, to becoming that person you (secretly?) want to be. Why? Because challenges help you grow, help you see how capable you are, help you let go of old dead stuff… hey, have you been reading this list?

7. Challenges give you something worthwhile to talk about.

Grace us with interesting Facebook status updates. Please. In the age of endless, constant communication, we’re all dying for something interesting to hear and discuss. Something besides the latest Youtube video or how much people hate Mondays or what we all had for lunch. Verbal refreshment, in the form of challenge updates. Bring it. We’re waiting.

8. Challenges call out the better part of who you are.

You know what part of you is resisting the challenge before you now? The fearful part. The lazy part. The hesitant, indecisive, self-indulgent, self-conscious part. In other words: not the good part. Don’t give the weenie-half any more power than it wields (for a wimpy part-of-self, it’s a power monger; don’t feed that).

Bring forth the best.

9. Challenges give you more sympathy for others who are struggling.

It’s easy to be deconstructively critical and snarky and all-things-culturally-acceptable-but-rude when we feel comfortable in our own lives. It’s easy to look down on others when we feel we have the high ground in our own lives.

But when you yourself are staring at a mountain, when the climb is sapping your energy, when you’re putting your all into something that’s tough but rewarding, then you can see a little more clearly.

You can sympathize with the struggles – and the successes – of other people in your life. Your high horse isn’t so high, after all, when you get it in perspective. Get that perspective for yourself or life will hand it to you, painfully, one way or the other.

10. Challenges equip you to be more useful and helpful to others.

At the end of any challenge, even a challenge which you might technically fail but still put all your heart and soul’s effort into, you will be a better, smarter, more knowledgeable, more helpful, more empathetic, and vastly more interesting person. Which means you have more to offer to other people, to the people closest to you, to the world in general. This is a good thing. Good for your self-esteem, good for your social life. Also, good for humanity.

So go for it.

Image: Me on top of a mountain by Blogging Bookshelf

This morning I was reading Arnold Bennett’s book Mental Efficiency. Kind of a slog to read through, but some gems in there.
Like this:

…no wound is more cruel to the spirit of resolve than that dealt by failure.

True. Solomon put it slightly differently:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. [Prov. 13:12]

On one hand, failure isn’t a thing to fear or to be avoided. If we see failure for what it is, simply a step on the road to our goals, it becomes less intimidating, less cruel. But when we fail over and over in reaching our goals or resolving our problems or simply moving on, it wears us down. Before long, we begin to see only the pattern of failure in our lives, and it makes us want to quit trying.

Bennett names three common causes of failure:

• unrealistic expectations: “you undertook too much at the beginning.”
• peer pressure: “the disintegrating effect on the will-power of the ironic, superior smile of friends.”
• impracticality: “you did not rearrange your day.”

unrealistic expectations

I do this all the time.

It’s a problem with me forgetting that I am, after all, not SuperWoman. Which is fine, if I realize this and set realistic goals, i.e., goals that a normal person can actuallyar achieve in a given amount of time.

Goals like write a novel this year, not write a novel today. See the difference?

Do you overestimate yourself? It’s good to set our expectations high. Most of us can do far more than we think we can. But we also need to be realistic about the demands of the day (which won’t simply disappear because we have a lofty new goal to pursue) and what we can accomplish with those demands still intact. We can also work on reducing the demands so we can focus on what is most important to us.

peer pressure

Mediocrity, interesting part of our culture. It’s like a big, lame party; nobody’s really having fun, but everybody’s acting like they’re happy because everybody else seems to be having a good time…
If one honest person would just step up and say, this party is lame, I have better things to do, there would be a lot of agreement. But since nobody says that, everybody just keeps smiling and making stupid comments and eating the cold appetizers.

You’ll get a mixed bag response if you set a high goal or demand more from yourself than the inane level of mediocrity in which most of us settle. Some people will encourage you, push you on, be inspired and become an inspiration to you.
Others will, because of their own unmet expectations and failed goals, make light of your resolutions, predict failure, and generally hold you up for mockery, either implied or explicit.

Simple Solution: just do your thing, set your goal, and start achieving it without talking about it. While accountability can be a powerful help on the road to reaching your goals, you need to be accountable to the right sort of people, not the public in general (in most cases). If your group of friends tends toward the snarky side, don’t expect them to suddenly veer into warm, empathetic encouragement to help you on your way.

impracticality

Maybe you can set realistic goals:

• run a 5k next month
• read a book a week
• write a blog post every day
• eat more salads

Whatever they are, if you don’t actually plan in the time and stuff you’ll need to do the work to reach those goals, you won’t reach them.

To train for a 5k, you need to start running on a regular basis. When will you do that? Do you own running shoes?
To read a book a week, you need a book. And you need to pick the book up instead of turning the tv on, or sitting in front of the computer, or going to the mall.
To write a blog post every day, you need to set aside the length of time it takes you do produce a post. Otherwise it will be shoved aside, shoved aside, and eventually forgotten.
To eat more salads, well, you need some lettuce in the refrigerator, right? And you need to make it part of your meal plan. Don’t go eat at fast food joints 5x/week if your goal is to eat more salads.

Do you set good goals but then fail to give yourself the resources to achieve them?

Don’t set yourself up for failure.

As you review your goals, make some changes and adjustments to the ones that are causing you grief. Go through the checklist:

• Are my goals actually achievable in my life?

• Are my peers encouraging me or discouraging me in these goals? [you can always get new friends. maybe you should...]

• Am I planning in the time and getting myself the resources I need to make regular progress toward my goals?

Image: Through a window by Muffet