Stuff I'm Probably Not Going to Do in This Lifetime

I'm planning an easy day today.  So here's an easy post.

I've been thinking of my internal stress factory lately as an overtaxed computer, with too many applications and processes running in the background.  Time to "Force Quit" some of these energy-suckers.  And to "Trash" some altogether. 

By way of mental decluttering, here's some things I'm ready to let go of, from the ridiculous to the sublime.  There are certainly more dreams and schemes to divest, but this is a start.  I'm putting the following to bed:

Stuff I'm Probably Not Going to Do in This Lifetime

Have more kids

Win a Nobel Peace Prize

Win a MacArthur genius grant

Win a Pulitzer Prize

Enter the Peace Corps

Do an Iron Man

Become a concert pianist
Backpack through Europe, or India, or anywhere

Run for office

Go bungee jumping

Get taller

Get a law degree

Become a midwife

Learn to speak French

Pilot a plane

Climb Mt. Everest

Strike it rich

Bowl a 300 game (or, for that matter, break 200)

Become a singer/songwriter

Star in a film

. . .

Although it seems silly, perhaps, I have to admit that I've carried some residue of these aspirations well into my adult life, in fact past midlife.  Really.  And these are just the tip of the iceberg.  I'll need to dig deeper to return my everyday working hard drive to a cool running, streamlined, efficient state.  Purging could become my new addiction. . .

Procrastinating 101: Winding Up the Lateness Cures

If I were due to be someplace at 12:00, the minute hand on the clock face at the left would be in the "Whew!  Just made it!" position.

A position I'm hoping to confront less and less.

Likewise the "Yikes!  Not again!  What lame excuse should I offer this time?" configuration, with the minute hand (and in my defense, almost never the hour hand) several points on the wrong side of the appointed hour.

So what can I take from the final pages of Diana DeLonzor's  Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged as we conclude our Procrastinating 101 consideration of her work?

To set the stage for an appreciation of the difficulties ahead, this quote from H. L. Mencken, presented by Ms. DeLonzor to head her chapter on habit change:

For every complex problem, there is an easy answer, and it is wrong.

Okay.  So nice and easy's off the table.

DeLonzor provides "three keys to successful habit changing," which shake out to more like six keys.  They are:

• Developing the right attitude
• Observing yourself
• Setting your goals and rewarding yourself

and also, under "Developing the right attitude,:

• Go cold turkey
• Don't expect it to be easy

and under "Observe yourself,"

• Keep track in writing.

All pretty self-explanatory.  I would add that, with the cold turkey recommendation, Ms. DeLonzor aligns herself, along with The Happiness Project's Gretchen Rubin, with those changers Rubin calls "abstainers."  Abstainers are the cold turkey crowd.  Moderators, on the other hand, approach change incrementally, avoiding lines in the sand. 

I suspect, from my vast experience of attempted habit change, some successful and some, well, not, that I am a moderator in abstainer's clothing.  That is to say, I am more successful when I persist in acceptance of the gradual nature of change and the inevitable (for me, anyway) slips.  However, I continue to operate out of an abstainer's mindset, and to pay the price.  When my perfect change doesn't work out as planned, I am prone to gradual abandonment of the goal.

Given this recognition, I think it unwise to adopt DeLonzor's advice that I shoot for immediate whole-hog timeliness.  (Am I detecting a barnyard animal theme in my approach to this subject?)

DeLonzor's "Final Note" (which isn't really, since it is followed by a final chapter for those early birds who have to deal with the likes of us, and Appendix A's 20-item "Action Plan for the Perfectly Punctual," and Appendix B's pretty useful "Meditation Instructions") is a little pep talk in which she sends the reader off, armed with new insights and awareness, identification with "one or two" lateness types, four or five appropriate exercises, written goals and an action plan, to "start practicing what you've learned."

She cautions against energetically rushing on to tackle other personal flaws and/or habits (should we have such things) before consolidating the practice of being on time.  And she suggests that the services of a personal coach (which she happens to be, so she should know) might prove useful should we bog down along the way.

She ends with "Good luck" wishes and an Emerson quote.

In retrospect, I think the book includes some good practical advice about taming our inner Mad Hatter.  For myself, I think it may be time to stop attempting across-the-board personal reformation and accept that I will probably to continue to struggle with lateness.  But now I understand some of why that is.  And despite the lateness of this final posting on DeLonzor's manual, the laxness of my approach, and my lack of a strategic plan, I have begun to observe small occasional instances of being on time.  And to learn how to experience them more frequently.

Done for the Week: Another of Life's Little Detours

I'm still up to my neck in four-year-olds this week.  That is to say, I've been spending the better part of my waking hours with one very talkative, very energetic, and very dear little boy, and trying at the same time to be as much help as possible to his mother--my daughter.  Her new baby turns two weeks old tomorrow, although by rights she shouldn't really be born for another seven weeks. 

My brilliant advice to my daughter, which I'm trying to remember to follow myself, is to take this challenging period one day at a time.  It seems that's the best I can come up with.  Really.  In the meantime, here's what I got done, somehow, last week:

Done for the Week:  Oct. 17-Oct. 23, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 8 of 9 Week Couch-Potato-to-5K program
2. Took my son shopping for new running shoes, and running gear
3. Cheered my son after he came in 5th in his age group in the Fall Classic 5K, and 24th overall! 
4. Won my age group , beating last year's time by 3+ minutes
5. Ran three times (including race), swam once
6. Read Where the God of Love Hangs Out, by Amy Bloom, Once Upon a Time There Was You, by Elizabeth Berg, and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk:  A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
8. Published 2 blog posts
9. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
10. Continued to give nearly full-time support to my daughter and her family as they coped with early arrival of their baby, and my daughter's continuing health problems
11. Helped my son purchase required laptop for school
12. Celebrated my son's first day in technical college automotive program
13. Went out for happy hour with my husband
14. Saw The Ides of March with my husband 
15. Watched first episode of Boss with my husband
16. Did laundry
17. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
18. Paid our household bills
19. Vacuumed several dogs worth of hair off our living room carpet
20. Entertained my out-of-town stepdaughter and her two sons, and arranged a family tennis outing
21. Took my grandson to his swimming lesson

Once again, the "most important thing" I accomplished last week was continuing to help my daughter and her family deal with the demands and difficulties of her medically complicated postpartum period and the needs of her preemie infant in a Level III NICU miles away.  We continue to refine the schedule and strategies for dealing with this temporary situation, and to marvel at the resilience of this tiny being as she matures and sheds one tube after another on her way to coming home in a couple of weeks.

I am working hard, but not minding the commitment or its requirements.  For whatever reason--probably the rewards of having had my own surprise children, and the lessons of relinquishing control when it was denied me--it is easy for me to take the long view.  This time will be here and gone before we know it, along with its special opportunities.  I am grateful to have the freedom and flexibility to be able to support my daughter in this way.

Last week's focus goal, in the midst of this adventure, was to "fit in three runs, in preparation for Sunday's race."   I managed to run twice before the race, and to swim once while taking my grandson for his swimming lesson.  Not ideal preparation for our race, given that I had only trained once the previous week, but the best I could do.  And good training in acceptance.

Next week's focus goal is to resume meditating.  Period.

Done for the Week: A New Leaf on the Family Tree

My family contains one more person this week than it did at the beginning of last week--the first girl born into our extended family in many years.  I am ecstatic.  I am worn out.

The little one who was in such a rush to get here has left some serious turbulence in her wake.  In the midst of her joyous and disruptive arrival, here's what I got done:

Done for the Week:  Oct. 10-Oct. 16, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 7 of 9 Week Couch-Potato-to-5K program
2. Ran once
3. Read Murder Your Darlings, by J. J. Murphy
4. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
5. Published 1 blog post
6. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
7. Attended second week of four week Run Better class with triathlon coach Lauren Jensen
8. Became a grandmother for the second time, as my daughter's premature daughter entered the world
9. Became a live-in Nana to my four-year-old grandson
10. Gave nearly full-time support to my daughter and her family as they coped with early arrival of their baby, and my daughter's continuing health problems
11. Dealt with my daughter's acutely ill dog
12. Helped prepare my son to begin technical college later this week
13. Went out for happy hour and a movie with my husband
14. Did laundry
15. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband

Last week's "most important thing," hands down, was supporting my daughter and her family through the premature arrival of her new daughter, and her own continuing health problems.   The baby was born early Tuesday morning, at 31 weeks, and though doing remarkably well, is expected to be in the hospital for at least another 3 weeks.  My daughter is dealing with two separate complications and a preexisting chronic illness, compounded by exhaustion and the aftereffects of necessary obstetrical interventions.  Her four-year-old is struggling with the temporary chaos and emotional distress that has beset his happy, stable home life.  We are all attempting to deal with the strategic demands of tightly scheduled twice daily visits to the NICU; my grandson's part-time preschool schedule; my daughter's medical appointments, including yet another specialist to be consulted for a new condition; hot and cold running relatives--the various members of our complicated extended family, all of whom want to help, to visit, to be part of things, and mostly on their own terms; and my daughter's serious need for rest.  


I have adopted the attitude I found helpful during my father's extended illness and eventual death a few years ago--that our circumstances currently are more like M.A.S.H. than like Happy Days, and we need to lighten our loads and keep bailing.  Low expectations, clear priorities, and a healthy sense of humor will get us through.  In the meantime, I cling to my nightly glass of red wine.  For the heart benefits, of course.



My focus goal last week was to "make some time for resting and taking care of myself and my home, and staying loose about how that will get done."  I did manage to get to my running class; to meditate in the middle of the night while my daughter was in preterm labor and I couldn't sleep; to squeeze in a couple of latte breaks; to vacuum several large dogs worth of yellow lab colored hair off my living room carpet; to read an inconsequential mystery novel; and to spend a pleasant evening with my husband.  If I had to miss three blog posts, abandon my novel, skip workouts, miss yoga and tap class and sleep and showers, I did the best I could.  

This week, we can probably better anticipate what lies ahead.  We are starting to problem solve, and to martial additional resources.  My new focus goal is to fit in three runs, in preparation for Sunday's race.  The rest will have to take care of itself. 

Done for the Week: Where Have All the Hours Gone?

Last week, fraught though it was, seemed to last about 5 hours.  Or at least that minimal time frame would be consistent with my perceived level of productivity.

Here's the official list:

Done for the Week:  Sept. 19-25, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 4 of 9 Week program
2. Ran once; swam once
3. Read The Shallows:  What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, by Nicholas Carr
4. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
5. Published 4 blog posts
6. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
7. Attended Prayer Vigil for jobs
8. Attended NAACP Freedom Fund dinner
9. Resurrected and read through half-done novel
10. Gave substantial support to pregnant daughter
11. Attended tap dance class
12. Did laundry
13. Took my dog to the dog park, with my husband
14. Watched episodes of Eureka with my oldest son
15. Finished reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
16. Went out for Happy Hour with my husband
17. Straightened out serious snafu with health insurance, affecting drug coverage for oldest son
18. Filled three prescriptions, requiring four trips to drug store
19. Fought with AT&T (and won!) over misrepresented replacement cell phone
20. Began using my son's old cell phone, until mine resurfaces
21. Found new mechanic, and arranged for inspection and adjustments to car my younger son plans to take on his first road trip this week

Last week's "most important thing" was supporting my daughter and her family as she makes her way through a high-risk pregnancy and the increasing maze of tests, regimens, and appointments.  My own pregnancies gave me some familiarity with the scary landscape she is negotiating, and I am happy to live close enough to do whatever I can to alleviate some of the everyday stress of dealing with an energetic four-year-old while going through such a difficult time.

Modern life and the so-called feminist revolution have left many women feeling like we have to fit our planned and obligatorily healthy childbearing in between the demands of our professional lives.  It has been my experience that some of us don't get to do it the easy way, and that at least this beginning part of motherhood resists compartmentalization.  We struggle not to feel guilty and/or defective because we are not able to carry and birth our children as efficiently as O-lan in The Good Earth.  

But this time of disruption for my daughter, and for me, will last at most the next two plus months.  And it is a time worth paying attention to, and giving space to.  And nothing else I am doing right now is as important.

Last week's focus goal, before my daughter's situation worsened, was to "return to work on the novel I put away last winter in the midst of my state's political upheaval."  My husband has expressed his disbelief that I would attempt such a thing with all that is going on just now.  But I have a few hours each week that I am attempting to keep sacred, to devote to making progress on this half-completed undertaking.  For as long as circumstances permit, I intend to "make hay while the sun shines."  I did manage to spend most of the scheduled time reading through what I have written thus far--material that I haven't laid eyes on since last February.  I plan to begin writing more of the draft this week.

In light of all that is on my overflowing plate at this time, my focus goal for the coming week is to meditate a minimum of three times.  As I have written before, meditation is most difficult when most needed.  Clearly, it is most needed now.

Acceptance Boot Camp

Life just keeps throwing me curves.  And you know what?  I don't think it's just me.

I was listening to musical artist Pezzettino today on the radio, describing the personal significance of her soon-to-be-released album entitled Pedestrian Drama.  I was particularly struck by her embrace of the adjective "pedestrian," in recognition that troubles and "drama" are common to the human condition.  We are not so special in our pain and confusion.  Or in our stress.  Or in our inability to stay any course without being blown off by unanticipated events.

And the whole curve thing makes me think of a workshop I attended recently, on the 10th anniversary of 9-11, where the main presentation was entitled "From Tolerance to Empathy."  Drs. Sam Richards and Laurie Mulvey, Co-Directors of the World in Conversation Project at Penn State, sketched a framework for moving into conversation that can bridge differences.   Participants practiced specific skills to facilitate such interaction.  

The highest level skill we dealt with on that occasion, in a mixed gathering of 300 Muslims, Jews, Christians, and "Others" like myself, was one they referred to as "steering into the curve."  The metaphor was taken from the advice to drivers negotiating slippery surfaces.  The idea is to go toward the  difficulty, instead of trying to jerk one's steering wheel in the opposite direction and risk making the situation worse.

So as new circumstances amend my plans and schedules in major ways--as at present with the serious health problems of one of my children--it seems like advice I can use;  steering into, not the health issues, but the chaos engendered by the changing needs for my support and care.  Kind of like riding the waves of labor contractions, instead of fighting for control.

Something I'll be working on for the next several weeks. . .

Lowering the Bar: My New Blogging Success Strategy

I am determined to revive this blog, and to reclaim the time for writing it.  Life, however, is not cooperating.

Today, paid work took up 9+ hours.  Then there was the failed effort to get my asthmatic son's acute bronchitis needed medical attention.  And a squeezed-in sortie with my grandson to see the under-construction sidewalk sections in his neighborhood.  And a run with my teenager.  And a thrown-together dinner.  And a two day's accumulation of dirty dishes.

And now I'm tired.  And it's past my bedtime.

So this is my post for today.  As Gandhi tried to tell us, tomorrow is a new life.  One, I trust, with a bit more room for blogging.

Done for the Week: Life in the Midst of Change

This is the beginning of Week 4 of the movement in Wisconsin to resist implementation of the new conservative agenda; to turn back the effort to crush organized labor and dismantle the social safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.  Again, not much time for everyday matters.

Here's what I got accomplished, somehow.

Done for the Week:  Feb. 28-Mar. 6

1. Continued off-season race training, continuing to be distracted by earth continuing to shift beneath my feet in Wisconsin; biked once, ran once (supplemented by lots of walking in demonstrations)
2. Finished The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder, by Rebecca Wells
3. Gave significant volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit; major I.T. contribution
4. Worked my two part-time jobs
5. Published 5 blog posts
6. Meditated 4 times
7. Got my husband and one son to the gym with me, once each
8. Attended meeting of committee to hire new organizer, and convened subcommittee to finalize interview questions
9. Met with UU Coming of Age mentee
10. Had a lunch date with my husband
11. Watched our 2 teams play 2 basketball games, with my son and my husband
12. Attended 2 demonstrations, 1 locally, and 1 in Madison; two large local rallies; and one breakfast with Jesse Jackson
13. Attended two yoga classes
14. Spent way too much time online, following political uprising in my state, "working" Facebook, Twitter, and political sites, and updating my organization's website to reflect on-the-ground scheduling 
15. Took one daytime nap, and got to bed "early" twice

Because we are going to be engaged in this project of democracy for the foreseeable future, I believe that the most important thing I did last week was to recognize my fatigue level, and to begin to address it with more rest. 


I did not do as well with my focus goal for the week, which was "to meditate daily, no matter what."  I continue to struggle with making time for meditation.  Applying last week's wisdom, I want to acknowledge my progress, however.  This week's number is one better than last week's.

Next week's focus goal--again--will be to meditate daily, no matter what. 

Done for the Week: Return of the Couch Potato

If I glance over to the right side of my slightly redesigned blog (see item 16 below), I see that we have finished with 10% of 2011.  Yikes.  And double yikes, considering how I spent this last week.

Here's what I did with my time.

Done for the Week:  Jan. 31-Feb. 6

1. Continued off-season race training, fighting a sinus infection and an intestinal bug; biked once; ran once
2. Succeeded in getting husband to gym with me once
3. Finished The Winds of Change:  A Guided Journey with Healing Music through Grief, Loss & Transformation, by Marcia Breitenbach
4. Continued providing minimal volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit
5. Worked my two part-time jobs
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Wrote 2 Gratitude Journal entries
8. Wrote 1 Morning Page
9. Meditated 2 times
10. Spent time processing last week's training experience (See my post, Back from the Jungle) 
11. Attended first meeting of committee to hire new organizer
12. Watched our two favorite basketball teams play 4 games, with son and husband
13. Took a snow day; played outside with my son, my daughter, my grandson, and a Plott Hound
14. Took a sick day; rested, read, and spent (too much?) time on the computer
15. Attended one yoga class
16. Spent a significant amount of time tweaking my blog layout, and making network connections 
17. Watched possibly excessive number of episodes of Becker on YouTube
18. Attended professional basketball game with my husband and two sons
19. Celebrated 18th birthday with my son's friend--my "third son"
20. Stayed inside long enough to wash my warmest winter coat
21. Helped shovel our driveway after major winter storm
22. Spent one abbreviated session on "novelling"
23. Walked my daughter's Plott Hound once; took my Lab/Greyhound to the dog park
24. Watched my second Super Bowl ever--nice bonding experience with my household's three males

My focus goal for last week was "to get back to working on my novel."  I anticipated that the weather would take a bite or two out of my scheduled writing time.  And yet I wrote that "no matter what, I commit to two writing sessions of two hours each."  Ahem.  See item 20 above, highlighted in green.  Glass half full, I'm going to say.  This week should be a bit more hospitable to writing, if I can get my head back into it.


The most important thing I did last week, somewhat counterintuitively, was to give in to my irresistible urge to slack, as in "that which a slacker does."  One snow day, one sick day, (both in red above) and several days down in the valley of lethargy, and I am starting to feel like moving again.  Of course, I am not generally the sort of person who comes to a grinding halt; even sick, and even blue, I normally still attempt the minimal required activity.  But from time to time, like this past week, I experience an uncharacteristic inner rebellion.  I have observed, in the past, that this usually follows a period of business, especially in the service of others' requests, needs and demands.  I am thinking it may be wise to approach the whole "hitting the wall" thing with an attitude of acceptance.  It remains to be seen if I am right about this, and if I can really pull off the acceptance part of it. 

Given this recent work stoppage, I am going to try to ease into the coming week, and to resist getting drawn into the vortex of other people's agendas.  I am congenitally bad at this, but I am making it my focus goal for the week, nonetheless.  And about time.

Fast Away the Old Year Passes

Maybe it's a New Jersey thing.  A polling group based in Asbury Park is reporting that nearly 70% of the 1000 Americans they surveyed will be staying in tonight.  But though we won't be staying home in New Jersey, you can add me, my spouse and one of my sons to that list. 


In recent years, I have gotten better at handling the Christmas ballyhoo, the lead-up that begins in late September in some environs, the ambient shopping frenzy, the holiday hype, the relatives, and the post-Christmas let down.  But I still feel guilty and slightly pathetic when the ball drops in Times Square and I'm not there.  And don't want to be.


I guess I feel that my family can pretty much hold a candle to anyone's in the way we celebrate the ultimate family occasion--the first in this annual double feature.  We indulge and lavish just enough, but not too much.  We sing, we deck the halls, we wax nostalgic.  We give to others.  And most of all, we show our love and are happy to be together.  Pretty much the essentials of the Silent Night thing, as I see it.  


But New Years Eve seems more about social engagement, something my troop struggles with a bit.  My husband works in another city.  My teenagers are homeschooled, and currently unemployed.  My social group consists of individual friends, a church and a community organization that are mine and not my family's.  It has been a few years since my husband and I were invited to a New Years Eve party.  And mostly that's okay.  But I feel like it shouldn't be.


I miss dressing up, a little.  I don't really miss yet another opportunity to overeat, or to watch others get sloshier, and ever less witty by the hour.  Somehow the "fun" often failed to materialize at the parties I have attended.  


New Years Eve has taken on a different kind of significance to me, and is most meaningfully passed with people I love--the short list.  So we will lift our glasses right here.  I am making biryani, and attempting cardamom bread.  Midnight will find us feeding scribbled feelings, habits, and mistakes of the past year into our backyard firepit, and taking a phone call from our absent household member.  We can see the city's fireworks from here, and hear the church bells.  


And tomorrow morning I will get up and keep on keeping on, knowing that this demarcation may be all in our minds, but it is not without importance. 

Stopping for Magic

Turns out Christmas will come anyway, despite whatever balls (and keepsake ornaments) we may have dropped in these days leading up to it.  It won't be perfect.  But it will happen.  And as it so often does in movies and song, the magic we attribute to this time will heighten feelings and experience.


As I write this, my extended family is celebrating a new baby, born yesterday.  A distant friend is posting updates on Facebook from labor and delivery, having survived the last harrowing weeks of an over-40 pregnancy--too much like my own last incubation. 


A friend is mourning her son, not two months dead.  My husband awoke at 5 a.m. this morning, thinking of his father who died on Christmas Eve, decades ago.  And I am missing my dad, more this year than before.


My husband is home.  Our tree is up.  The last late-night online shopping delivery has arrived. My children have graduated from passive holiday audience to fellow makers of the occasion, contributing their outdoor lighting skills, and their thoughtful gift-giving, hatchet-burying and culinary talents.


In true procrastinator fashion, I will join my husband shortly in planning tomorrow's menu and making up one last shopping list, before heading out to the grocery store to join the throngs.  


But in this moment, I want to breathe and to, in my yoga teacher's class-closing words, "fill [myself] up with gratitude for all that [I] have, and all that is yet to come."


Whatever our traditions, and in the most universal sense, 
Merry Christmas!

A Cast of Thousands, Each One Significant

Some of us are old enough to remember the heart-stopping daffodil scene from Dr. Zhivago;  spring, and life, returning after the ravages of the Siberian winter and war.  The artful cinematography drew the eye into the multitudes of blossoms, the profusion of glorious yellow, to a symphonic backdrop.  After what Yuri and his loves and his countrymen had been through, only this surfeit of daffodils would suffice.  


The scene came back to me this morning as I contemplated my fear of redundancy, and of being derivative.  This fear overtakes me especially in bookstores, and libraries, where I am surrounded by the words of others.  I encounter it, too, when confronted with the zillions of blogs dealing with issues of procrastination and productivity.  I know that I am not alone in the feeling that my little creations don't much matter against the scale of all that has been written.   


But if I look to the daffodils, I see that there is room for all that each of us can be, and make. We don't ask each individual flower to justify its blooming.  And we rejoice that when each one fades, there will eventually be others to gladden us.  


So if others write, and have written, and will write, it means nothing to the value of my work.  And I am not off the hook, after all.  My particular life can only be nurtured or neglected by me, for my own reasons.  And it is worth what it is worth.


In this season of underground regeneration, I will work on trusting that we are heading toward the light, that growth will occur, and that our individual beauty is enough. 

Shenpa, Schmenpa: On Getting the Hook

Pema Chodron, in whose wise, albeit virtual company I spent last weekend, (see Time Out and Done for the Week:  All This, and San Francisco!) has been teaching for some time on the subject of shenpa.  Shenpa is a

Tibetan word . . . .usually translated "attachment," but a more descriptive translation might be "hooked." When shenpa hooks us, we're likely to get stuck. We could call shenpa "that sticky feeling." It's an everyday experience. Even a spot on your new sweater can take you there. At the subtlest level, we feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we feel a sense of withdrawing, not wanting to be where we are. That's the hooked quality. That tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger, jealousy and other emotions which lead to words and actions that end up poisoning us. 

And though she didn't focus so much on shenpa last weekend, I have been doing my own little independent study on the subject the last couple of days.  Yesterday and the day before might aptly be termed "Days of Rage," in which I became "hooked" by my feelings of anger resulting from my rediscovery of the fact that the world is not my oyster.


It started on Wednesday evening, when my meditation group was once again besieged by a building full of noisy groups of people, evincing their outrageous unconcern with our need for peace and QUIET.  Recent weeks have seen a disturbing (to me, hence the shenpa) uptick in usage of our church building by various ad hoc and standing committees on the very night that our group had chosen to meet.  The first result was that we were bumped from our spacious, and familiar quarters, and reassigned to the "Quiet" Room.  The latter is a much smaller space filled with recently relocated church library overflow and items devoted to occupying fussy children and their parents during services.  The room itself has recently been renamed, its previous moniker "Cry Room" more fitting to my experience in it lately.  


Last week, we contended with loud conversations outside the door to our assigned room, and riotous laughing accompanying a video being played at a deafening volume on the other side of an apparently paper wall.  The offending soundtrack also boomed through the sanctuary where we sought to do our walking meditation--since our "meditation space" was too small to accommodate doing anything but sitting on our chairs and cushions in a tight little circle.  We tried seeking refuge for walking in the not-so-atmospheric church basement, but a Tai Chi group occupied the central area, and the other meeting rooms, like those upstairs, were all filled.  Back to the sanctuary, and the party noise spillover.  And our efforts to "be in the moment," and "focus on the breath."  That was a new low.


Until this week, when the noise and the apparent revelry continued unabated.  This time the sanctuary too was in use by new members "building their own theology" with our minister.  Having benefited from that curriculum myself some years ago, I could hardly begrudge them the space, or their having fun with the enterprise.  But I did.  Just a little.


When it came time for our walking meditation, we decided to head outside, to our "prairie circle" drive in front of the church.  The temperature was pleasant enough, and the moon was full.  But it was intermittently sprinkling and raining for most of our walk.  And then there was the coming and going of cars to this newly irresistible mecca.  And the gaping.  What were these weirdos doing walking in slow motion in the dark and the dampness?


I know that, theoretically, "everything is my teacher," and that I should have been able to block out all this distraction and use the opportunity to train my mind.  And theoretically, I should be able to meditate in Times Square, too.  But I'm not that good.  Not ready for that particular prime time.  


But here's the thing.  It wasn't the noise, really.  It was my emotion about the noise, and the fact that others were making that noise when it didn't fit in with my plans.  What Pema calls the "story line."  And that's what hooked me.  Meditation became anger management, and it wasn't going so well.  In retrospect, I can see myself spiraling down into the kind of martyred thinking that has been a challenge for me in other arenas.  I can't get what I want, what I see myself as entitled to, so I feel and act out my victimization.  


The meditation dilemma was bad enough, but as it turns out, easily resolved.  We decided to move to another night, one with almost no other scheduled meetings or events.  We will once again have the building mostly to our quiet selves, and can return to our preferred spot within it.


But I am seeing this morning, having spent a restless night dealing with a fresh anger, that it doesn't end there.  Apparently, given my response to my husband's actions yesterday, I have the same control issues in other areas of my life.  And they hook me again and again.  


All this relates to getting stuff done because it involves so much counterproductive emotion and action and inaction.  Yesterday I was too angry to meditate.  I fell off a curb and reinjured the left foot that I am going to need for my race on Sunday.  I spent too much time trying to calm myself playing Mahjong Medley on my computer.  All the jaw-clenching and shoulder-hunching gave me a splitting headache and unraveled my post-yoga serenity.  Hours that could have been spent writing went unreflexively down the rabbit hole of web design.  Lost time.  As in, I was lost for much of that time.


This morning, prajna

. . . By Any Other Name

Beating The Little Hater

December 18, 2007

My son the hip hop blogger sent me this, from ill Doctrine--"a hip-hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad." And though I'm not as videogenic, or as hip as Mr. Smooth, I identify strongly with what he has to say here about the relationship of perfectionism to procrastination.  And why my standards for writing have grown over the years of not writing, until they loom like furies as I sit at the keyboard.

Every day, I understand more about the scourge in my life that is perfectionism.  And it is not just a stumbling block to creativity.  It comes into play in virtually every arena.  This past weekend, I was upset with myself for not being a perfect grandmother, who, in my "little hater's" view, would relish every minute in the sandbox, never tiring of pretending to be a front end loader, or of the incessant conversation of a three-year-old with a sophisticated vocabulary rendered partially unintelligible by the enunciation idiosyncracies of his age.  And yesterday, it was my mothering, life-partnering and household maintenance whose subpar results gave me grief.  I really need to rein this guy in.  Jay Smooth calls the actions of "all these little haters" a conspiracy, and appeals to all creative people to work together to beat them.  He asks us to share strategies.

Therese Borchard, author of the hit blog Beyond Blue, refers to perfectionism in a recent post as her personal "brick wall."  Her strategy? 

getting up at 5:30 in the morning to begin my day in prayer. Because if I go to God first thing each AM I'm less likely to hit that wall so hard.

Gretchen Rubin includes this advice in her post "Ten Tips for Being Happier:"

There are two types of decision makers. Satisficers (yes, satisficers) make a decision once their criteria are met. When they find the hotel or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied. Maximizers want to make the best possible decision. Even if they see a bicycle or a backpack that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option. Satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers expend more time and energy reaching decisions, and they’re often anxious about their choices. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Apparently, I may have gone a bit overboard yesterday, when I spent an hour an a half "maximizing" my choice of personal checks, though I think you'll agree that the results were excellent. 

  

But I see what Smooth means about all those open tabs. . .

Turning to another source of wisdom, I learned of the Buddha's perfectionistic (if occasionally homicidal) cousin, Devadatta. His story and its meaning are summarized in The Psychology of Mature Spirituality: Integrity, Wisdom, Transcendence, by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Melvin E. Miller.

The story of Devadatta shows that perfectionism is the enemy of perfection.

Of course, Devadatta was a moral perfectionist, caught up with rigorous rule-bound practice. Not really my issue. But still, the cushion recommends itself to me as a place to start befriending my imperfection. And it just might help, too, with what begins to look more and more like adult ADHD--which I am starting to think is a cultural artifact of our times.

I am taking away from Jay Smooth's video blog the "little hater" terminology. It is more evocative than the "internal editor" nomenclature I have been using for years to identify the voice that stops me from writing. An editor one might deal with rationally. A hater should just be tuned out for the killing influence he is.

So I will work on turning a deaf ear to "It's too late to make your mark," "You don't really have anything to say," "What the world doesn't need is another hatchet job of a manuscript in search of a drawer to die in," and their ilk. And just get on with it, already.