Weed Reflections

I have spent a fair amount of time recently on my hands and knees.  Not praying, or begging.  Weeding.

Our backyard has been taken over by mustard garlic, burdock, deadly blooming nightshade, creeping charlie, thistles, nettles, dandelions, broadleaf, and other green and growing nuisances.  We are also plagued by upstart box elder seedlings--the devil to remove, due to the right-angled underground turn taken by their roots.

Working to reclaim this formerly habitable part of our property has sent my body into an almost permanent penitent position.  And then there are my dirt-caked nails, as soil has even penetrated my admittedly cheap gardening gloves. 

My mind, too, has assumed the position.  

To begin with, there is the guilt and confusion I feel as I wrestle with those unwanted fledglings.  How do I decide what stays, and what goes?  Do I let neighbors determine the composition of my landscape?  (Do I only imagine that they look askance at my dandelion spores wafting toward their perfect lawns?)  Do I adhere to the norms of the politically correct?  ("Mustard Garlic, invasive, bad.")  Do I consult the experts, with their lists of unwelcome species?

I have the easiest time with those varieties known to be dangerous to dogs and small grandchildren.  Nightshade and burdock, I pull with abandon.  But what about the creeping charlie, with its gingery smell and its sweet purple blossoms, which has volunteered to take over for my sketchy grass?  Why, again, do I want to preserve the stuff that requires constant mowing, and constant nagging about mowing?  

And on the other side of this yard maintenance divide are the pansies, begonias, roses, raspberries, mint, peonies, irises, forget-me-nots, mums, columbine, poppies, tulips, sedum, stella d'oro and other day lilies.  The plants I have introduced intentionally, and wish to keep.  Somehow, they thrive less happily than the so-called "weeds."  Perhaps this is how I should distinguish weeds from flowers, though that seems a bit pessimistic.

My mind is also occupied, as I yank and discard, with applying the metaphor to my life.  It comes to me that lots of what I do, and think about, grows like Topsy and threatens to take over my hours and my days.  And that much of it has crept in, uninvited by me.  And that many of the things I have chosen, and attempted to nurture, are not flourishing.

Like my novel, choked by the weeds of Wisconsin politics.  Losing its struggle for a dedicated patch of ground.

Tomorrow seems like a good day for more weeding. . . .

Procrastinating 101: Decisions, Decisions

Are you (gasp!) a decisional procrastinator?    

Dr. Joseph Ferrari, author of Still Procrastinating?  The No Regrets Guide to Getting it Done, discusses "decisional procrastination" (DP in the trade, apparently,) in his third chapter.  It was not entirely clear to me whether he was saying that all procrastination involves indecision.  But implicitly, the procrastinator seems to be behaving indecisively when he or she puts off acting even after making a decision to, say, take on a project, or attempt a goal.

Ferrari tells us that difficulty with decisions may stem from the "diffuse identity" shared by most procrastinators.  This is a "style of identity," in which the individual avoids discovering her or his own weaknesses and strengths.  Such individuals "fail to commit themselves to any personal values and understanding of who they are."  (Are we procrastinators really that lame?) 

Ferrari goes on to explore the role of "information overload" and how it can compromise the "multithinking" required to self-regulate in order to perform a task.  To this reader, his treatment of this topic is a bit confusing, perhaps even confused.  He believes that many procrastinators would find the following scenario familiar:

You find yourself unable to decide which shirt to buy, which rug to order, which book to check out.  As a consequence, you buy three shirts, order two rugs, and check out several books from the library.  Then you fail to return the shirts, lose the receipt to the rugs, and pay overdue fines for the books.

I admit to defending myself from "TMI," and not only in the sense of embarrassingly personal disclosures by others.  But I believe it is more than financial limitations that prevent me from  purchasing multiple items because I can't make up my mind!  The library, of course, is another matter.  But then, can one really ever have too many books, if they are only temporary acquisitions?

Ferrari highlights research which finds that "decisives" gather more information about each possible alternative before choosing, while "indecisives" gather more information about the option they've already selected.  Ferrari believes indecisives "choose" (might we say "decide"?) to limit the amount of information they will deal with in making a determination, perhaps because they are easily distractible and wish to avoid being overwhelmed by information.  And he says that this is dysfunctional.

Indecisives appear to suffer decisional fatigue (which doesn't similary affect decisives) after making a certain number of decisions.  Ferrari speculates that indecisives have not built up their decision-making muscles, and prescribes more frequent decision-making.  

As to the genesis of indecisiveness, some studies show a link between being indecisive, and having had an indecisive mother and the ever-popular "cold and demanding" father.  You know, that ogre-father identified, it seems, in so many studies of negative psychological bents of one kind or another.  He erroneously--in my view--concludes that the existence of decisive individuals raised in the same house as their indecisive siblings "shows that procrastination is not genetic but learned."  But don't siblings differ significantly in their genetic makeup?  For example, cystic fibrosis, which is genetic in origin, will statistically affect one in four children of two parents who carry the genetic trait. 

But whether or not we may inherit a tendency to procrastinate because of indecisiveness, it seems reasonable to hope that the behavior itself can at least be modified.  Ferrari has this advice for those of us who would cure ourselves of the scourge of indecision:

• Limit your options (to avoid "choice overload"; group options by shared characteristics)
• Journal your thoughts (and challenge "irrational and unproductive" ones that keep you from acting)
• Do the math (list pros and cons, and weigh them against each other)
• Don't look back ("Move on, move forward.")
• Take your time ("Take time to decide, don't take time to stall."  Aim to gather enough information to decide, not all the information.)

And for those of us who are becoming more grown up by the minute, Ferrari warns that

"...whatever helped you reach your goals in phase 1 [of adult life] might prevent you from attaining them in phase 2," when we must transition from the values and roles that brought us this far.  Indecision can rear its ugly head; it can "steal your right to choose."

I have not yet decided how valuable this book may be in my quest to understand how and why I procrastinate. . . 

To Resolve or Not To Resolve?

Okay.  Here it is the 5th of January, and I still haven't decided whether I'm making New Year's resolutions--or not.  So what is that about?


Maybe a pros and cons list will help me figure this out.  I have come up with the following positive thoughts about New Year's Resolutions--hereinafter referred to as NYRs.


NYR Pros
1.  I've (almost) always made them, so they're part of my tradition.
2.  NYRs give focus to my efforts to improve myself and my life.
3.  NYRs are useful conversation fodder at this time of year.
4.  If I manage to keep all or most--or what the heck! even some--of them, NYRs can strengthen my good opinion of myself.
5.  The exercise of considering and choosing NYRs makes for some pretty deep reflection.


All good, yes?  So why wouldn't I make like a polar bear and take the plunge?  What's not to love about NYRs?


NYR Cons
1.  I've (almost) always made them, so they're part of my tradition.  (Not so obviously a good thing.)
2.  NYRs can limit my focus, and concentrate my efforts too narrowly.
3.  As an NYR agnostic, I believe that my human mind is too small to know with certainty that NYRs have anything to do with outcomes, or with the quality of my life in the year ahead.
4.  If I manage to break all or most--or what the heck! even some--of them, NYRs can reinforce my low opinion of myself.
5.  The exercise of considering and choosing NYRs would require an amount of time and energy (given my perfectionism, which, come to think of it, maybe I should resolve to eliminate) that could be spent actually accomplishing something, resolved or not.


Clearly, neither list is exhaustive.  And since I have created two 5-item lists, I can't make my decision on a quantitative basis.  


As a fledgling Buddhist, I can see the attachment aspect of NYRs.  Not good.  But then I could resolve to let go of attachments. . . . But wouldn't that be basically becoming attached to the idea of non attachment?


Okay, now I'm getting a headache.


I have a provisional list of resolutions, just in case I decide to adopt any.  (Which makes me wonder who their original parents might have been, and why they decided to relinquish them.)


Revisiting last year's post on the subject of NYRs, I see that my quandary is not new.  Apparently, at least some things stay the same.  But what does that mean for the question at hand?  Resolve?  Don't resolve?


I resolve to think about it some more.