Day 12 - Appreciation.

Occasionally my kid will have a day where nothing is good enough. It's not that he's necessarily unhappy with what he has, it's just that what he has isn't enough. He has a million Star Wars Legos, but not the new Boba Fett; the picture I colored for him was good, but he asked for the lava to be orange and part of it is red; we're on our way to get ice cream and he's holding a toy in each hand, but he needs a quarter for the vending machine; he's played way more video games than we normally allow but he didn't get to play this one. So we often find ourselves with the opportunity to teach him about appreciating what he does have.

But how many of us need that same reminder?

I'll admit it: I'm one of them. Lately, I've been keeping myself conscious of the feelings of "not enough" of something, and as soon as I feel it kicking in, I stop it, shift it, think of something I can appreciate instead, and move on with a smile and a contented sigh. I'll catch myself complaining that I don't have any free time, and remind myself that I'm choosing to spend my free time keeping up with chores rather than reading or writing, but I could just as easily make that choice differently; or, whining to myself that I don't have any friends I can talk to until I remember that, oh wait a minute, yes I do, I just don't talk to them often, so I take the opportunity to shoot a text to a friend; or, complaining that we always do what they want but never what I want, only to be met with the reminder that hey, I can ask to do things I want just as easily as they can.

How often do the choices we make keep us living with a limited idea of our resources? How easy could it be to reframe things, to remember all that we do have and to better utilize what we have rather than looking for more to fill a void? 

Right now, think of something you've been feeling a lack of. Time? (Time for what? What could be rearranged to give you time for that?) Money? (Money for what? What could be rearranged so you could use your money differently?) Friends? Love? Support? Attention?

What of that do you already have that you could appreciate a little more? Because the funny thing is, wishing you had more makes you more aware of what you don't have, yet appreciating what you do makes it easier to see more of what's already in front of you.

Day 11 - Soullessness forthcoming.

I don't even know how to explain this.

So, there's this movie, Manos: The Hands of Fate. In short, it is the worst movie ever. I only wish I were exaggerating. It really, really is. And it's not just bad like "wow, what a total waste of time" bad, or bad like "wow, this is so bad you can laugh at how bad it is" bad. It's the kind of bad that sucks out your soul moment by moment, makes time slow down so that the movie lasts seventeen hours instead of two, and by the end of it, you generally have lost the will to live.

MST3K did Manos and that doesn't even make it tolerable. If you're not familiar with MST3K, one man and a few robots he made are launched into space by a mad scientist who forces them to watch terrible movies, which they sit there making fun of. Typically this can turn a terrible movie into something hilarious with all the making-fun-of going on. In Manos, by the end of it, the dude and the robots are all crying, and the mad scientist and his assistant both independently apologize to them for sending them Manos, saying that they've gone too far.

I have seen it three times.

The first, I was in college, and I watched it with a group of nerd-friends.

The second, some other friends who'd seen it and I were talking about its awfulness, and Rich felt left out... so we watched it together to let Rich experience the horror.

Which he then felt the need to spread to his brother, which makes time number three.

What typically happens is that at the beginning of the movie, people are all geared up and "Ooh! A bad movie! This'll be awesome!" and excited. Then after a bit, the excitement not only fades but is gone completely, and posture goes from upright to a general slump. A while later, you just get fidgety and uncomfortable and want it to end, when will it end. Then by the end of the movie you feel dead inside, posture is something close to being a puddle of goo barely even maintaining a position on the furniture you're slumping so hard. In groups where we would tend to watch multiple movies in one night, by the end of Manos, you just.... can't. There is no desire to watch anything on the television again, ever. Period.

And we'll be watching it tonight with some newer friends, who are currently excited to see a how bad a movie it can be.

If I don't make it out alive, just know that I love you all.

Day 9 (late again) - Inspiring.

It always amazes me seeing how people respond to their circumstances -- how some folks react outrageously to things that seem small to others, how some respond calmly and see opportunities in things that would be devastating to others, how different people can respond to the same exact thing in completely different ways.

A friend of mine and former metaphysics teacher had his foot amputated last week. I visited him in the hospital yesterday, and in the face of something that others could find truly devastating, he was happy to feel better after the issues leading up to the amputations had been taken care of, discussing how interesting it was to observe the different personality types of the hospital staff and how their attitude affects their work, and curious what type of career he may go towards next, since he had, until now, been in construction.

In the face of losing a foot and part of his leg, in place of pain and loss he was talking about change, and how this can help him better help others.

It's all in how you see things, I suppose. I like his way. And I wish him speedy healing, and an exciting transition into the rest of his life.

Day 8 - Made with love.

A hand-made present from your kid is always the best present you could receive. A pie made entirely from scratch, made for people you really want to enjoy it, always tastes better. A greeting card is more appreciated you spent the time to pick out the perfect one, and it shows.

What if you decided to hand-make your day from scratch, with love, and spend time picking out the perfect message you want to send yourself that day? What kind of day would that be?

What's stopping you?

Day 7 - Mistakes.

Since writing Day 6's (late) post earlier today, I've been thinking about the concept of "failure." In the School of Metaphysics, we learned -- and I'm totally paraphrasing here -- that there are no mistakes, only opportunities to learn. There is so much you can learn from the "mistakes" and "failures" in your life -- if you choose to.

I would be willing to bet that not one person out there hasn't had at least one big, huge learning experience in the form of what could otherwise be called a "mistake." A car accident that taught you to drive more carefully; unintentionally hurting someone's feelings which taught you to be more careful with your words; a close call with drinking or drugs that led you to make healthier choices for yourself; forgetting too many important appointments leading you to learning better calendaring skills.

The important factor in this is what you choose to do with it. You could choose to beat yourself up over hurting someone's feelings or forgetting too many appointments, or you could choose to learn from it and work to reduce those types of mistakes in the future.

The cool thing? You can even do this in retrospect. Do you have a mistake in your past that you're still holding a grudge about against yourself? Stop and look at it. Did you know it was a mistake when you were doing it? How has this mistake changed you as a person? If you hadn't made this mistake and learned from it, who might you be now without having learned that lesson?

Chances are, a lot of what's made you as awesome as you are today, was figuring out all the things that didn't make you feel so awesome before, and then working on it.

It occurs to me that this ties in with self-forgiveness... Topic for another day.

Day 6 (a day late) - Success is in how you see things.

Six days into November and I missed a day. I could look as this a couple of different ways:

1) I SUCK and I FAILED less than ONE WEEK IN and I should just GIVE UP now that I've failed because I can't even make it ONE WEEK so what's the point in doing this the rest of the month when I've already failed?!

or

2) I was spending time with my family yesterday and at the end of the day, I chose for my priority to be resting and spending time with my husband after a good, long day, rather than blanking out on the internet and forcing words onto a screen, just because.

I'm going with option two.

There is a difference between "failing" and choosing to spend your time and energy elsewhere.

Yesterday was a good day, complete with hand-made presents from the little guy, pizza with the in-laws at the request of the little guy, free fabric from my mother-in-law with lots of grand mental plans to make more tiered skirts, our bedroom and closet cleaned and reorganized, the little one's bedroom picked up and some toys reorganized... and? Apparently just moving around toys makes them all! brand! new! and exciting! so I had plastic eggs and pretend grape juice for dinner, after snacking on some plastic broccoli and a plastic banana.

There is nothing "fail" about yesterday.

Today I'll choose to make up for it and write twice :).

Day 5 - Relaxing.

Sometimes, the days where you do nothing productive but a load of laundry and spend the rest of the day leisurely relaxing, and it is a purposeful, "I deserve this" sort of relaxing, that is just as good a day as the days when you check a dozen things off your to-do list.

Today is one of those days.

What do you do on your "screw it, I'm doing nothing!" days? (Other than... nothing.) Reading? Writing? Are you huddled on the couch with a blanket? In the recliner with the cats? I want to hear all about your chill-time.