joy · struggle · TEACHING

Can’t Hardly Wait

Molly Daniels Hayes3 Comments

2.14.18 cant hardly wait

In an uncanny manifestation of the maxim, “What you resist persists,” I am now an English Teacher.  Woe, that I defied this title, this job, for years!  Struggling against the inexorable pull, sneering at the middling title, eschewing a complacent slide into the profession.  (“Those who can’t do, teach.” …)

As a creative writer since youth, an English major, an English Master, a poet, blogger, and storyteller, I felt that to accept the job of English Teacher was sooo woefully predictable.  So average.  So unambitious.  So … basic.

Therefore, I skated around the pit I saw the job to be, and instead languished in all office jobs related to writing!  “Marketing.”  “Communications.”  Death.

Until the magnetic pull of what is the natural fiber of my being caught me, like an x-wing in a tractor beam.  Call it circumstance, fate, desperation, but I needed a new job, and a financially and professional flailing 30-something is not very attractive — to me or anyone else.

So, here I am, a Middle School English Teacher.

Just what I always resisted; just what I always wanted.

Middle school, I’d imagined, would be my preferred age-range (harrowing and potent as those years can be).  And I couldn’t have been more accurate.  I love this age.  Teaching this age, not being — being that age was horrible for me.  Therefore, I’d always thought that I wanted to help usher and guide upcoming youth through that awkward, excruciating time.

In this, my new and current school, my first year as a full-time MS English Teacher, I have discovered that I fit seamlessly.  My homework is to read YA literature; my day work is to discuss it.  My class work means I invent journal prompts for my students, like, “Write a Love Letter to a Piece of Nature,” or, for Tu B’Shevat: “You are a Tree.  Write at least 10 sentences.”

Recently, when I lamented to my boss that I emphatically did not enjoy or want to teach the book my 6th graders are assigned (one listed on the curriculum for years), whined that the language was too difficult for my more struggling readers, she merely replied: So don’t.

“Find a book that you truly love, that you can’t wait to teach.  And let me know.”

The end.  End of story, of lamenting, of struggle.  End of desperation.

Do what you love, the literature tells us.  Do what you love, my boss tells me.

Woe, that I resisted it so long.

 

 

self-care · shopping · success

“I’m Feeling Very Olympic Today!”

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2.13.18 olympic.jpg

(One of my favorite lines from the movie, Cool Runnings, and utterly appropriate lately.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the information I’m receiving from my “expert” sources is like sitting in an echo chamber:

Stretch beyond your current comfort zone.  Be curious about how to approach things.  Don’t limit yourself to your present reality.  Take action.  Make a plan.  Measure progress.  Establish accountability.

Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, and Brian Grazer are all touting the same advice: Do more to be more.

The movie quote has been scrolling through my mind as I’ve recently taken action in various areas of my life, one being “spending out.”  This is a phrase coined (to me) by Gretchen Rubin in her Happiness books and which I related to immediately:  We don’t buy things we need; we put off purchasing them and make due with moth-eaten, or sample packets, or simply without; we deny ourselves the replenishment (literally and spiritually) of the pleasures and efficiencies of life.

Every month, I write a spending plan that includes line items such as clothing, entertainment, personal care.  And for as many years as I’ve kept a spending plan, I have “fundged” money from these line items to make up for deficits caused by, say, an unexpected parking ticket, more eating out, or balancing out some other “necessary” line item.  This has meant that, for months on end, I go without spending the money I’ve allotted and planned to spend.

Now, surely, NOT spending money may be a value trumpeted by our society — SAVE YOUR DIXIE CUPS! — but in a case like mine, I deprive myself for months on end, feel edgy and dissatisfied, and mostly, I just feel like I’m not moving forward in life, no matter the numbers on my paycheck.

So, in an effort to “Do more to be more,” I have been spending out.  In January, I spent from my “Entertainment” line: I bought tickets to the symphony to see West Side Story (phenomenally delightful); I bought my very first series package from the SF Opera (my favorite, Tosca, was a part of the package, and I get 50% off for being a teacher!); and I spent the $3.99 to stream a beloved video at home with my sweetheart (Hot Tub Time Machine… they can’t all be operas!).

I spent in “Personal Care” by setting up a recurring delivery of my favorite facial moisturizer, instead of slowly scraping through various samples and ending up with breakouts or dry skin.  I got a pedicure!  I can’t recall the last time I’d had one.

In February, so far, I totally scored in “clothing.”  As I’ve gotten older, my ideas around what clothing purchases I make have become more stringent as my ethics have solidified: no first-press clothing.  What I’ve done for a few years, then, is to shop at thrift stores.  I’ve found some crazy prizes, but for the most part, the clothing from “thrift” stores can be pilled, worn-out, and not very stylish.  So I simply go without.

Last year, however, I began to haunt this one consignment store in a wealthier part of town.  And, boy, howdy, have I done well there.

But I hadn’t been in over 6 months.  I hadn’t spent in my clothing line for that long.  I have been depriving myself.  And I hate it.

This past Friday afternoon, I shopped.  I shopped so hard.

What was remarkable to me about this shopping trip was the abundance of “manifesty” items I was able to find: the oxblood motorcycle-style leather jacket (a la Emma Swan of Once Upon a Time); the knee-high leather boots (size 11!); the happ’nin oxford leather shoes (to replace the fading bronze ones you see at the top of this blog).  I have wanted each of these items … for years.

And as I exited the store beneath the darkening sky, the last customer of the night, a smile pasted, eyes widened, heart spun, I felt prosperous.  I felt right-sized.  I felt, f*cking Olympic.

 

 

curiosity · growth · relationships

Curiouser and Curiouser

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2.12.18 curiouser

Several years ago, I had this exchange with an old boyfriend:

“I know what you’re going to say–” I started.

“In that case we never have to talk,” he wisely interrupted.

Uh hmm… well, I do suppose he’s right.  If I believe that I already know how people will act, talk, behave, and respond, then why bother talking to or engaging with them, anyway?  If I think that all people are is a prescribed set of responses and actions, what on earth is exciting or surprising about them — and, more to the heart, what on earth am I learning?

Yesterday, I listened to the SuperSoul podcast interview between Oprah and Brian Grazer (a Hollywood writer and producer, whose name I’d not known, but whose movies I’ve cherished: Splash, Apollo 13, Parenthood).  He’d just released his book, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, and I loved what he had to say in the interview and promptly downloaded the book.  (My most pleasurable way to clean my house is while listening to books — and this one is read by Norbert Leo Butz, one of my favorite Broadway musical actors [yes, with a name like that, I’m sure he had no choice but to become so incredible he couldn’t be laughed at!])

Brian Grazer’s message is apparent in the title, but what struck me was the idea of remaining curious within my own relationship.

At the start of our dating, and for many months after, my current boyfriend repeated the following, partly as a habitual mantra and partly as a badge of honor: “My first answer’s always, ‘No.'”

As a woman who enjoys lots of new experiences, I was frequently given the chance to hear him say his cherished mantra:  No.  I don’t like movies.  I don’t like vacations.  I don’t like parties.  I don’t…

Yet, as soon as we’d complete one of those new activities, he’d almost invariably (if begrudgingly) admit, “I love…!” or, sometimes the pride-preserving, “I guess ___ isn’t so bad.”  Or, maddeningly, “Why didn’t we do this before?!”  *insert eye-roll emoji*

Over our year-plus together, we’ve both noticed an interesting shift in his knee-jerk response from “No” to “Maybe.”  As his girlfriend, this has been exceedingly wonderful to hear.

However, at times, even “maybe” is too foot-dragging, too oppositional, too much effort for me to convince, and I become disheartened, occasionally pessimistic, and sometimes dour about the prospect of trying new things together, moving into new places in our lives together.  And I stop hoping.

Now, while this might be a reasonable reaction to a wall of “no,” the pure truth is that the answer is increasingly, “Sure!”  While I may quietly lament a lack of verve or passion for life, the truth is that he’s increasingly taking action, showing verve, and expressing passion.

What I’ve begun to realize is that my own pessimistic reactions have become static, sedate — and outdated.  J. is not the man I began dating — he is becoming a new version of himself.  Yet I can still react to him as though he is the negative nancy I knew.

I have lost my curiosity.

I have begun to assume what his actions and reactions will be.  I have lost sight of what is happening today by pasting it over with a staid version of yesterday.  I have limited him to a vision of who he was, rather than who he is and is becoming.

How very sad.

So, my action for myself is to now notice who and what is truly in front of me.  Yes, sometimes that is still a nay-sayer, and that can be true, but how about noticing the Yeses, the That was Funs, the We should do that more oftens–

And mostly, the increased Joy.

 

 

allies · self-love · thoughts

The Enemy.

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2.9.18 thoughts

I once had a date wherein the tall, handsome man across from me repeated the following phrase: “I am not my thoughts.”

Being perhaps naive or simply visually dazzled, I went on another several dates with this man, and again heard versions of this tagline: “We are not our thoughts.  Divorce yourself from your mind.  It is not you; it is not of you; defeat it.”

Soon enough–as in, the first time I heard it–I began to tire of his (and many others’) message.

Yes, I get it; I am the observer of my thoughts; the thoughts aren’t the me.  yadda yadda…

I’d heard this before, I got it, I get it.  And frankly, I don’t care.  Please, do go ahead and disagree and think I’m completely misinterpreting and if I only understood, I’d feel so much more enlightened and at peace (Do remember, that’s only your thoughts!), but here’s how that framework feels to me:

“There is a part of you inside of you that is the enemy, that you must fight and destroy and override at every interval!  Your mind is out to harm you and you must master it, judge it, and excise it at all times.”

For the love of Christ.

This reminds me of when a doctor will say that you need medication to attend to a malfunction with your body.  Somehow your body has become your enemy and you need to tame it and subdue it or excite it.  For reasons unknown to them, you have developed some strange rejection of your own body and they know how to treat it: Override it.

While I am not wholly anti-Western medicine (chemo survivor, after all), I do feel great suspicion of tending to a problem with a nuclear weapon rather than with some subtler, perhaps more inconvenient method.  And this is how I feel when people talk of subduing their mind by divorcing themselves from it.

Luckily, at the moment, I’m listening to two tapes that are countering that way of thinking: Deepak in the 21-day meditation Manifesting True Success and Canfield in The Success Principles.  Today’s meditation on “The Successful Mind” and yesterday’s chapter on renewing thought patterns both echo the same sentiment:

Your mind is a tool, an ally, a friend, and, hello!, a constant companion until your death.  So why on earth would you want or ever need to get rid of it?

I submit that some thoughts are not useful; I recognize that there is larger consciousness disconnected from repetitive, self-defeating thoughts.  I know from experience that habits of mind cause habits of action, and not all those actions are self-supporting.

That said, use what we’re given!  Why would we be given a mind, or a spleen, or a tonsil, or an appendix if we’re not supposed to have them??  Why would it be incumbent upon us to remove or silence all the vibrant and functioning parts of us, including our mind??

YES, some thoughts are negative and cause painful patterns.  But the wisdom I’ve been listening to lately — and which resonates best with me — is that our mind can be trained, our mind can become an ally, our mind is a fantastic and abundant asset!

Don’t remove what evolution and Fate have bestowed upon you: harness it, heal it, use it — and love it.

 

 

abundance · action · courage

Never Have I Ever…

Molly Daniels Hayes1 Comment

2.8.18 stocks

Yesterday, I bought stock.

This is what a first time should feel like!  With all the nerves and excitement and planning and pondering and reading of others’ experiences… and then, finally, the just doing it.  Omigod.  I should have smoked a cigarette afterward.

At the start of November, I looked into what kinds of low-fee brokerage houses were out there.  Even writing the words feels like marbles in my mouth.  Brokerage house.  What do I know from investments?  The lady with less than $3 in her bank account every 2 years?  The woman crawling back from chemo and its resultant absence of paycheck?  The person who ran in to a room of folks, desperate, angry, and frustrated at the slicing paycheck-to-paycheck existence I’d been living?

Well, I suppose what I do know is that I’ve stayed in that room of people, for nearly 7 years now (the length of time for all your cells to turn over) — and maybe all the braincells that had been attached to deprivation and loneliness and despair have come to the death throes of their lifespan, and I’ve begun to take action using the new cells with the new programming and the new ideology I’ve learned.

What I do know is that none of this has been as simple as a click on the laptop … and yet, in the end, it was as simple as a click on the laptop.  The final action step (or start of many): click “Buy.”

Why so many months since the opening of the account to the purchase of my 1st stock?  Oh, procrastination, avoidance, inconvenience of the way it was set up, stymied by a technical error that prevented me from moving money into it.  You know, hurdles.

But when, yesterday, I opened The New York Times and merely read the word Tesla, something within me shifted to high gear.  Google the price of a share; pull up the brokerage account; try to remember what on earth I’d chosen for my password anyway; and lo! The account could link today!  Link it; transfer it; choose it; buy it.  Done.

It’s not much; it’s one share that may tank at any point in the future.  But, for today, it feels like the most goddamned abundant thing I’ve ever done.

 

 

 

deprivation · meditation · worthiness

Worthiness

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not-worthy

For the past year, I’ve been adding dimension and characters to a story entitled, The Town of Obligation.  This began as a piece of inner work to explore in a very different manner my relationship to Responsibility — and as “responsibility” came to me with a capital letter, I began to imagine her as a person … in a town … called Obligation.

At some point, I discovered that the town was under an illusion and delusion about “Worthiness.”  It was clear that worthiness was not a character, a person, in this play, but rather a stream running through the town, a source from which anyone could drink.  But at some point in their history, the inhabitants began to solidify and pass down the misinformation that only certain people could drink from this wellspring.

Worthiness was only for some.

Well, now.  I knew this to be bullshit, so I sent my meditating, imagined self over to that wellspring — by now in a different land than Obligation, a forest of different imagination.  I arrived at this pool of Worthiness, this golden viscous fluid, shining and beckoning, Midas’s own pond.  I knelt to drink.

But I could not.  I attempted to drink it through cupped hands, but that didn’t feel right.  It wouldn’t cross my lips. … Okay, how about a wooden scoop?  No, still it won’t cross my lips, fill my mouth, warm the insides of my chest.  Uh, okay.  Maybe I’m supposed to swim in it?  I dive in.  Splashing around in the golden water, it still doesn’t feel right.  What the F?

I come out of the meditation, nonplussed.  I talk to my mentor.  I go back to the pond later, and try again.  What’s the matter?  Do I not feel worthy?  Have I become so deluded by living in Obligation that I, too, have come to think only certain people are allowed to have it?

And so I try again.  I ask: How, Worthiness, am I to receive you?

The pond spills forth a rivulet.  The liquid flows into a pool within which a tree begins to sprout.  It’s a redwood, growing rapidly up and up.  … The tree is pulling the flaxen liquid up through its center, its bark glistening with succor, pregnant and laden with the stuff.

Up the massive, newly-grown pine, Worthiness glides, and then down across the boughs into waving branches and flickering leaves themselves.  Til Worthiness pulses out the stems, out the infinite pine needles, and begins to rain.

Standing, in my mind’s eye, beneath the canopy, I begin to be showered, lathed, bathed with the honeyed gold.  I begin to laugh, like a child caught in a sunshower — that sudden and miraculous moment of sun-warmth and chaotic drenching.

Under and inside the falling droplets of Worthiness, I laugh and dance and stomp.  I begin to feel filled and owned and embodied by the sense.  This storm of esteem inhabits me, fosters me, seems never to end its reign.

And –as yet– it hasn’t.

 

 

action · authenticity · friendship

All in.

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2.5.18 caravaggio Tour_Cheat beter

With daylight still apparent after my hour-long commute home, I dashed into my apartment last week, threw on sneakers, and grabbed my phone.  I was in too much of a state of agitation and pent-up energy to listen to the tree sounds yet, so I opened the audiobook app and continued listening to Better Than Before, the habit-formation book by Gretchen Rubin.

She was talking about the strategy of “Pairing,” wherein we unite 2 things that need to be done (for example, treadmill desk at work).  As I continued stalking over to the park-like cemetery in my neighborhood (where many folks run and walk dogs; I swear, not creepy!), I stopped suddenly struck.

I could unite 2 things I want to do.  

For long, I’ve wanted to read more classical literature.  I am an English major, MFA, and teacher, after all, and an avid (near-penitential) reader.  And like many readers, I have on my shelf “aspirational books”: those that I’d love to have read, but struggle to actually read.  E.g. Moby Dick, Ulysses, The Iliad.

What thunderstruck me on my walk was this: I could listen to the audio versions of these classic books.  Perhaps that would not only help me to “read” them, but also to understand them.  First up?  Anna Karenina.  I have indeed attempted to read the paper and cardboard version of this novel, but have been stymied by the names — who are they talking about again??  The Russians love to use the full “Christian” names, the diminutive names, the LAST names, all interchangeably to the point where I’ve absolutely lost track of who the hell is Tolstoy talking about anyway?!

So, thusly, my brainwave led me to the ebook app where I discovered Maggie Gyllenhaal(!) would read me Anna Karenina.  Downloaded, earbuds in, I began to walk again in the falling light.

And folks, I UNDERSTOOD it!! I listened again on the slog-ride home yesterday, and I could actually recall portions of the plot and (for the most part) retain who was who!

I shared my discovery and attendant elation with a friend on the phone this past weekend.  And she, too, was elated — and suggested we start a book club.

Now, Gretchen Rubin is a book-club lover and, honestly, I thought I would jump at the idea — it has been hard for me to read these books on my own.  But with this new-found habit of listening to dense books rather than reading them (which I do plan to do once I hear it all), I’m not sure that I truly want to meet up and discuss them.  I talk about books all the time.

I recounted this conundrum to my therapist last night, and she asked if I actually wanted to be in a book club. … “Well, not really,” I replied.  “But what I would like is a regular poker night.”

Several years ago, I opened my apartment door to find an Amazon package on my welcome mat.  The package was addressed to me and the packing slip inside was as well.  But without a return address or orderee.  Inside the box was a slim, silver case, within which was a brand-new poker set.  Chips and cards, even dice and a disk with “Dealer” printed on it.  I’ve no idea from where it came, and have held onto it (in aspirational fashion) ever since.

I’ve lugged it to campsites, to winter cabins, but still the deck of cards remains sealed in its plastic sleeve.

“I’d love to have a regular girls’ poker night,” I said to her again.  “To gather and kibbitz; to have fun, because, in the end, it is a game.  But I’ve always been stymied by the fact that my apartment is too small… I’ve wanted a game night for years.”

And so, it seems, I’m going to have to enlist a few friends–maybe even a few new friends–to join me for blind betting, cut decks, and bowls of tortilla chips.

No, I don’t really know how to play — but I will.

 

 

goals · success · time

All we are is dust in the wind, dude.

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2.4.18 socrates-with-bill-and-ted

One of my favorite exchanges in film is this one between Bill & Ted and Socrates (delightfully mispronounced, “So-CRATES,” as in boxes).  Socrates then lays the following gem on the endearing surf-philosophers: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” (Albeit, he says it in Greek…)

I share this today because: What’s the deal with all the calendaring and habit stuff, anyway, Moll?

Listening to a habits book; reading said habits book; writing a time plan; crafting a habits calendar; listening to a 21-day meditation on time sickness.  Why?

Because of Socrates’ reply: There is only so much time; How will I spend it?

I’ve crafted a degree of discipline over the last several years about how I spend my money.  Discovered money is a useful tool, yet a harsh master; decided how to use it to best support my goals, desires, health, vitality, future and present.  How I spend my money reflects the values I hold.  And so, now, I look at another of the very few tools I have control over in my life: my time.

With the habits tracker eliminating decisions and encouraging a little effort each day (rather than the sprinter’s “exertion/exhaustion” purgatory), I’ve crafted and carved out more minutes in which to do that which I must.  Not dishes or laundry, but purpose.  To act in alignment with my purpose.

When I spend 4 hours on the couch both days this weekend reading Cider House Rules, is that in alignment with my purpose?  Hmmm, yes, reading is a love but, maybe just 2 hours would suffice!

When I clean out folders and boxes when I really need to start an avoided piece of writing for my weekly goals call?  Well, yes, clearing needs to be done.  But what ultimately moves me toward my purpose?  Certainly not “tricking” myself with apparent busy-ness so that I have zero time to write.

My next body of work is in the arena of effectiveness, success, and (forgive me) “flow.”  I can tell because the words I’m reading and listening to have begun to shift from time:  Oprah’s Super Soul conversation with Jack Canfield about success.  Downloading his Success Principles on Hoopla (the library e-borrowing app).  And this morning, starting the 21-meditation on…Manifesting True Success.

My weekly goals call has shifted in its tenor, too, from finding, making, using Time to a pulled-back overview of refining my larger goals and purpose on this earth:

Now that I’ve made time, how will I use it?

 

 

abundance · beauty · fill the well

Cul’cha

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culcha 2 2 18

It’s dark out.  My mom’s hand is tight in mine.  My patent (p)leather shoes tic-tack on the pavement of the New York City sidewalk.   At this time of night, all the streets look the same: wary, hiding, ominous.

Between two looming building, we turn.  Open before me is a plaza centered around a circular fountain blossoming with timed water displays, patrons in dark and clicking shoes, and columns regally flanking the Lincoln Center square.

From the time I was about 7-years old, my mom took me with her to the New York City Ballet.  She’d long since realized that my dad was only going to snore through the performance, so she needed a date for the other season-long ticket.  Though I quit ballet around that time (it was more fun to “cut” with the preacher’s daughter, leaving the basement class where my cohort was now on pointe–but I was too young for it–and go across the street to the candy store, or raid the church’s kitchen for snacks), the lusciousness of the art was not lost on me.

The Christmas tree rising majestically out of the stage of the Nutcracker, the stilted mechanics of movement of the marionette-like Coppelia, the tightening swarm of sound as the Swan plunged to her death.

For long, I’ve loved what is considered “high culture,” and in my cash-poor 20s, it was recommended that I volunteer usher at the San Francisco Ballet, which I promptly begun to do.  Ballet for the cost of greeting people in fine clothing and pointing toward marble-laced restrooms.  But I moved to Oakland a decade ago, and the commute to a free ballet became too costly.

Enter the present.  Wherein, over the last year, I’ve identified “The 4 Pillars of My Life Need” (yes, that high-fallutin):

Input:      (Spark) Intellect;  (Have) Adventure;

Output:   (Share) Self-Expression;  (Create) Beauty.

Attending the ballet, or symphony, or latest Marvel movie(!) is adventure for me.  It fires my intellect and imagination, and enables me to fill that well so often depleted by demands of quotidian life.

The delight experienced by that 7-year old in her black velvet dress and opaque white tights has never dimmed, only been shunned for aching periods of time.  So, tonight, across from the San Francisco Opera House, my bf and I will tic-tack into Davies Symphony Hall to be graced and inspired by the orchestra underscoring West Side Story, and Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno will dance my imagination into flight.

 

 

balance · contentment · order

In the Interest of Time…

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Calendar

“Babe, do you think it’s too prescribed to write a Habit Plan for the whole year?”

Ermmm, yeah, maybe.  Why would you?

“Well, my month-long habit tracker is working so well and I already want to extend it to a 2-month plan — because some things happen every 6 or 8 weeks — so, I figure there are some things that happen every 6 months or once a year, so why not put them in…?”

Pause.

“Yeah, I guess that’s a little much, huh.”

When I trace the origins of my newly-minted habit of habits, I can see this all started with extending my second set of house keys in November, at which point I gained the Lord’s most eagle-eyed observer: the live-in lover.

As is bound to happen in a relationship,  I’d already begun to adopt some habits from my boyfriend (and he from me).  For example, the daily making of fresh coffee, clearing the bathroom sink of my hair (instead of washing strands down the inevitably-clogging drain), clearing my car of accumulated detritus on the regular.

Most of these boyfriend-influenced habits have been in the realm of cleaning and clearing, maintaining order in a shared environment … where, let’s be honest, I’ve always been … relatively lax.

Examines fork from yesterday’s breakfast:  No crusty bits!  Okay to reuse!

Spills a few parsley flakes on the floor: No problem, sweep ’em under stove with sock!

And J’s most exemplary tidbit from me:  “Hey babe, how do you clean a toilet, anyway?”

Because of our new living situation, I’ve begun to be more fastidious in my habits but the supercharge shift happened about a month ago after listening to a podcast of Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday (as I washed dishes!).  She was interviewing one of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, whose books The Happiness Project and, my more favored, Happier at Home, have been on my physical and audio bookshelves for a while.

Gretchen was talking about her new book, of which I’d not heard, Better Than Before; about the idea of not being perfect, but of working in our lives to be, simply, better than before.  I love this idea, and ordered the audiobook immediately.

Enter the Habit Tracker.  Although this is not specifically one of her suggested habit-creating tools, I’d been saying around then that I wanted to put all my daily and weekly tasks into a calendar.  This aligned perfectly with her theory that removing as many decisions from our day as possible is a delight.  I cannot tell you how much I cherish this idea:

Fewer decisions = More Freedom.

Should I clean my dishes today?  Clean the toilet today?  Wash my hair today?  Do I have the time?  Do I feel like it?  Do I want to?

ALL THESE DECISIONS VANISH!:

On alternating Mondays, I do my brows or paint my nails.  Alternating Fridays, I ice skate or clothing shop.

It’s Wednesday.  I wash my hair.  (Sundays, too.)  😉

It’s Friday.  EAT SWEETS DAY!

I’ve absolutely loved this new plan for myself.  No questions.  No doubt.  No fiddling, cajoling, coercing, convincing, denying, depriving.  No whining.  No wasted energy.

I am thrilled at this new process for myself (vitamins every day in January!), but as I look to plotting into the tracker, “haircut (3x a year), oil change (2x a year), tire rotation (1x a year),” … I begin to wonder if too much tracking is tiresome and spontaneity-sucking.

I’m not convinced yet that it is, but I’ll schedule questioning for Friday.