Jerry's Chain--Don't Break It

When we left off, I was reading a book about 12 steps to becoming a person of impeccable character and manners. Here's that post, in case you missed it. 

Well, that failed.

Not that I have been particularly rude. But I did experience some road rage the other day. I ended up flipping the bird to some twenty-five-year-old dude. 

Maybe I shouldn't have returned the book to the library quite so soon. It was due, though, and it would have been bad manners to return it late. Especially since it's a new book, and it had a hold on it. I didn't spend enough days with it to establish all the good habits it recommends. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, reading that book made me aware of my shortcomings around consistency. I am not consistent. I’m not consistently inconsistent, either, I hasten to add. But over my life, I see, much as I wish I didn’t, my tendency towards failures of consistency. These failures affect myself, particularly. I’m the one I usually let down. If someone else is depending on me, I'm there, on time, or perhaps even early. If it's for me, though, the winds of willpower drop away and leave me in the doldrums.

Just the other night I had plans to go to an event, a political gathering. I was tired, though. The meeting was scheduled for late afternoon, and that's when my biorhythms are low. (Anyone remember biorhythm theory?)  My point is, I was going to poot out. I was going to stay home, eat almonds, and snoozle on the couch. The husband nudged me to the door, though, and I went. And, yes, the moral, Readers, is that I was very glad I had gone. I needed that nudge, though, to get over my inertia. I did not have a habit of consistency towards myself. 

And so, I had to face my lack of consistency. I fessed up to it on my monthly phone call with my college friend C, and E. 

Now, it’s easier to fess up to a bad habit if you’re not currently engaged in it. So when I told them I realized I had a problem with consistency, particularly around my writing and things that were mostly for me, I spoke from the middle of a pretty decent streak of daily work on the book. But I knew that if I hit a bad patch with book, my consistency would suffer. 

Afterwards, my college friend C sent me a chart called the 66-Day Challenge* and I’ve been using it to keep going. Here's a photo of it: 

This 66 Day Challenge apparently was inspired by Jerry Seinfeld. He gave an interview, which I, too, read. I, too, was struck by the comment he made about his work habits.** That is, he writes every day. No matter what, he writes. The husband pointed out that Jerry Seinfeld doesn't have to write very much. He writes jokes, not novels. One-liners. Not essays. But to the husband, I say, "Pish! Humor writing is hard. Being concise is hard. Concise humor writing? Well, how many Jerry Seinfelds are there?"  Anyway, the husband was joking. This may underscore my point about the paucity of Jerry Seinfelds.  

To help himself stay motivated, Jerry hangs up a giant wall calendar in his office. He puts an X over every day that he writes. He started doing this long ago, and the desire not to break the chain is sometimes what he needs to get to work. “Don’t break the chain,” he says. That's the secret to his consistency. That’s all. 

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” So said Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher. 

What about a non-foolish consistency? That’s what I’m after. 

I have to clarify my terms here. Consistency as I am using it means reliable, regular, dependable. R.W. Emerson seems to be using it to mean irrational rigidity. 

“I’ve been exercising my whole life—and I hate it,” my father said, not long ago. He is 92. Is that a foolish consistency? No way, José. That’s a rational consistency. I also thought it was probably untrue. Would he really do something he hated voluntarily his whole life long? I doubt it. Perhaps because it’s untrue for me. I like to exercise--usually. My dad is the person I credit with demonstrating this habit. Is that ironic? I think it is. “It’s almost always better to exercise” is one of my slogans, and I enjoy it. Exercise, I mean. Well, and my slogan. I enjoy that, too. 

But I digress. When you combine this X strategy with the theory of habit formation, which says it takes a few weeks to establish a habit, you get a handy PDF that you can send around to your friends who lack consistency, to light a figurative fire under their figurative butts. That is what C did for me. Fair enough. 

Hey, whatever it takes, right? I’m trying it now. You can see I’m not that far along. I am optimistic, however. I am optimistic because along with the X strategy, I am also employing the strategy of setting the bar low for this daily goal. I do not have to write for a certain amount of time. I do not have to write on a particular thing, like my book. I just have to write. Every single day. I find I like to get it out of the way in the morning. Put down some words. Put down an X. I can then put down plenty more words, but I’ve met my goal. 

By the way, experts disagree about how long it takes to establish a habit. Some say it takes about 21 days to form a habit. The guy who created the 66-Day Challenge says the magic number is 66. Habit formation is complicated. So is the term "expert." I don't even know if this 66-Day Challenge guy is an expert on habits. I do know he's written a book and he has a website. Hey, kid, want a piece of candy? Yeah, he could be anyone. But his chart is a-okay.

Anyway, it’s one thing to want to get rid of a bad habit. Extinguish is the behavioral psych term for that. Extinguishing a bad habit takes one kind of strategy. Ingraining a positive habit takes other strategies. One of them is this habit of maintaining the change. In other words, don't break the chain. 

We’re all just little kids inside. We like our charts and stickers. In fact, maybe I will use stickers instead of Xs. Not too long ago, I found an old folder full of stickers I used when I taught elementary school. Behavior modification comes down to reward and punishment. The reward for my habit of consistency is my chain of Xs—and my ballooning files of writing. The punishment for failing to write? I don’t think I could face my broken chain. 

Let us pause and remember that a goal is different from a habit. A habit is something you do automatically. Whether good or bad, it’s programmed into you and you need to deprogram yourself, or program yourself to ingrain a habit. A goal is something you actively pursue. It’s not automatic. But of course habits can help or hinder us in pursuit of our goals. Thus, consistency in writing is a habit I want to develop. You could say it’s a goal to develop this habit. In fact, I am saying that. I have a goal to develop a consistency habit. This is a good goal to have. It’s an achievable goal. It’s even a SMART goal—Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-Related. 

I'm pleased with my X strategy so far. I don't know that it's a habit, yet. As a strategy for continuing to write, it seems promising. I'm hopeful it will eliminate some of the resistance I feel when I've been away from writing and have to bring myself back to it. We all need strategies for continuing. Life is continuing. Things I am in the middle of I am still in the middle of. The book. The quest for success. The drive to be kind, or at least polite. Systems are going, which, to be honest, is something I appreciate more and more. Every day I wake up, I’m grateful for that consistency. Trite but true, as someone wrote on someone’s yearbook page decades ago. 

* You can download your own 66-Day Challenge chart to light that figurative fire under your friend's figurative butt at https://www.the1thing.com/resources/66-day-calendar/

**https://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret  

Mental Contrasting and Ganesh for Success

Just a quick note this week. We have had a French exchange student with us since last Wednesday. Things are going well. She’s a very polite and quiet exchange student. The only thing I really don’t get about her is that she has left home without a book. This is a mystery to me. And it presents a bit of a dilemma for the 9th grader, who needs her down time, and would like to spend some of it companionably with our visitor reading. 

Alors. 

I say exchange student, by the way, but there is no exchange involved, unfortunately. This is because our school district no longer allows our students to stay with host families abroad. Our French teachers argued for it to no avail. 

Oy. 

Anyway, to entertain the visiting students, some of us got together for a day trip to Woodstock. Woodstock is not actually very near where Woodstock occured, but it is a very groovy town full of vintage clothiers, flea markets, incense, Tibetan flags, Indian prints, and all manner of yoga-related symbols, as well as expensive comfortable clothing and shoes - and good food. It was a win-win. I got into the spirit of things in one of these shops and decided I needed something Ganesh-related. In case you were wondering why, Ganesh is the Hindu god of success or of removing obstacles, which is apparently the same thing. 

I agree they are related. And Ganesh abounded in this shop. I chose a cool postcard with an image of Ganesh on it and went to buy it, only to be told by the cashier that the side of the shop where I got it was owned by someone else, and since my postcard had no price tag, she couldn’t ring it up on her register. 

Ganesh was an obstacle in this instance. And that, Readers, is ironic. 

However, for reasons of who knows what - maybe kindness, perhaps amusement - the husband liked this story and also thought I needed a Ganesh, so he ordered one for me from Amazon. It arrived today. 

I’m not entirely sure which obstacle I hope Ganesh removes. I hope that’s not a problem. However, it may be problematic, since I’ve learned that setting specific intentions is a potent way to get things rolling in the right direction. A general wish is kind of wishy-washy, if you will. What if Ganesh removes all obstacles? That could be mayhem. Some obstacles should remain in place. For example, red lights and stop signs and some kinds of inhibition. Let’s assume the idea is Ganesh removes obstacles to success. So, what success am I aiming for ?

I think we all know it. 

But while I like my little Ganesh, the more useful method of removing obstacles to success is mental contrasting. Mental contrasting is a method of visualizing yourself achieving a goal, then considering carefully the obstacles to it that you might encounter. Once you identify an obstacle, visualize yourself overcoming it and how you will do it. Then visualize your goal and another obstacle and so on. Thus you merge a positive mindset with the knowledge that you will have to work to achieve it, as well as that you have the ability and grit to do so. Recipe for removing obstacles. 

So my little Ganesh will sit by my computer as I write and will remind me that I have the power to remove obstacles to success. And also, perhaps, my little Ganesh will work some magic over the things I cannot control. 

A bird house in Woodstock, NY

Gone Fishin' - Why Success Matters

Here's a brief dispatch from the beach, where I try to avoid serious thinking in favor of allowing the waves to mesmerize me.

Just to emphasize the paradox of the random symmetry of life I must mention that the garage door broke just before we left, almost exactly three years after we arrived at the beach and received an email from our neighbor asking if we meant to leave the garage door open. We had not. It was broken then, and it is broken now. This time we left it closed and un-openable.

But that's nothing to do with success. Being at the beach can make a person wonder if success even matters. Being at the beach in a beach rental property that is also for sale for just over two million dollars can make a person wonder if there's any point in defining success in any other way than as having lots of money and power.

So I'm just going to leave you with this little bit of wisdom: success matters, and success is not about the ability to buy a beach house.

Here's the thing. I think the drive for success is built into us. It's intertwined with the desire for meaning. Sure, people put a lot of emphasis on happiness, and happiness is definitely desirable. Howevs, the positive psychologists who study this stuff have figured out that happiness is a byproduct of being in the state of flow. And the state of flow, as I've discussed in other posts, is a condition of being totally absorbed in an activity. Now this activity is not just any activity. To achieve flow, you have to be involved in something that is challenging, but not so difficult that it's frustrating, and you have to actually achieve mastery of that challenge - and then go on to create another satisfying challenge. It's a process kind of like riding waves, if you will.

And this is why I conclude that success is important. In flow, you are continually striving for a goal, then resetting your goal and striving for the new one. It's made up of series of challenges and successes, and this process is essential to happiness. Therefore, ergo, success is important to happiness, and if we all agree that happiness matters, it follows that success matters, too.

Image by Phoebe Amory 2015

Reach, Target, and Safety Goals

Hello, Readers, I am just writing a quick post this week, as this evening marks the start of the Season’s Festivities around here and I have a frittata and a soup to cook. 

It’s been a blergh week. That means no news on the book front, and lots of work on the parenting front: the Senior danced her final Nutcrackers. Much emotion involved in that. Following that came assessment of the school work she needed to complete, as well as the college applications. She’s working up to the deadline on those things. It’s not how I wanted it, but that’s how it is. Since before Thanksgiving, she’s been dancing all weekend, every weekend, in different cities around Massachusetts and Vermont, on top of her regular classes - oh, and school, too! So there wasn’t any time for essays. Or sleep, actually. (I can practically see Frank Bruni flexing his writing hand for another Op Ed piece on over-achieving children and their terrible parents.) What can I say? Some kids want to overachieve. You really can’t stop ‘em. 

On the plus side, I got some good advice during my monthly conference call with E and C. I told them I’m in a waiting mode, and it’s frustrating. Waiting and rejection are also wearing at my noives. (Say that with a New Jersey - Joizy - accent.) I’m starting to say self-deprecating things in front of my children, which they hear with dismay. Not healthy. E told me to try to find some activities that boost my self esteem that aren’t related to publishing. Good advice. My old NYC therapist gave me that advice, too.

C told me to take Seth Godin’s advice and “pick yourself.” Stop waiting for permission. That resonated, since giving yourself permission is definitely one of the keys to success I identified. Once again, therefore, I must remind myself I do have permission to undertake this goal - or whatever goal is important to me. So while in this waiting period, waiting to hear from publishers, I should choose myself, which means write the dang book, get immersed. Get excited. Do it for me. Keep moving and going. 

Maybe I should look at my situation in college parlance. After all, around this house, we’ve been thinking in those terms for months. Okay, sure. My Reach goal is publication by a traditional imprint, with an editor and all that. My Target goal is self publication. And my Safety goal is getting that book written, which will achieve a few things: get it done; provide me with new material to blog on and for articles; allow me to see the next project. As in the college search, it is wise to find your safety options appealing. You want to be happy with yourself and where you are, even if you fall short of your reach. 

Happy Seasons Greetings Holidays! 

Willpower and Success: Yom Kippur Fast

Last night both girls went to services with me and my friends. As I mentioned, I go every year. I go to a nice liberal synagogue where the rabbi is a lesbian with adopted black children and nobody talks about Zionism. It's not embarrassing to be Jewish in a place like that.

The 12th grader wanted to fast, and then the 8th grader got curious about it, too. Of course they did. They are teenaged girls. I was not planning to fast today. I haven’t fasted since high school, when dieting was a way of life anyway. I have avoided it partly because I tend to get shaky if I don’t eat; partly out of fear of triggering a dormant eating disorder; and partly because I assumed I lack the necessary self-control to make it for a day without eating, so why confirm the worst? Also, partly because I just don't care. I'm a secular agnostic atheist Jew. 

This year, though, I was thinking about fasting more seriously than I have. Someone I sort of know mentioned she likes to fast because it helps her to feel grateful for all that she has and reminds her that other people go hungry every day. Very noble. More noble than I, or at least than I intended to be.  She got me thinking, though, and then the kids were interested.

Of course the 12th grader's comment was, “I’ll sleep ’til noon and then it won’t be that hard.” So when I woke up this morning I resisted food. I didn’t even have my morning glass of water. I decided that I could make it until noon. If my kids were going to sleep away half their fasts, I could just half-fast. And I made it until noon. It really wasn’t hard, especially once I allowed myself the treat of reading Pride and Prejudice in bed, instead of going for a run/walk. Then I found some Crest white strips in the bathroom and I put them in for two hours. I meditated for awhile. 

Finally, noon arrived and I made coffee with soy milk. I ate a tiny bit of muffin, too. And then the girls woke up and proceeded not to eat. Somehow that strengthened my resolve. They both have such great willpower. The 8th grader asked me to make her a grilled cheese sandwich around 1pm; but when the 12th grader said, “Oh come on, it’s only five hours until dinner,” she thought better of it. And I thought I could wait, too. Willpower is contagious, I guess. 

I think of myself as pretty weak-willed. I’m not big into deprivation. It makes me feel so lonely.  And the specter of reviving an eating disorder does lurk. I don’t want to go there. However, it feels pretty good to be getting through this day. Unfortunately, according to what I learned at temple last night, I’m not actually fasting correctly. This involves abstaining from water, food, sex, bathing for pleasure, and sex. I realize I wrote "sex" twice. I meant to add "leather." So coffee with soy milk and tiny bit of muffin technically means I broke my fast. 

Do I care? 

Is this a spiritual lesson? I mean, I’m thinking about my diet, my waistline, what the scale might say if I actually had a scale. I’m thinking that I can probably eliminate some snacking every day. These are very self-centered thoughts. Furthermore, it's clear that the 8th grader is competing with her sister, and I don't want them to totally show me up, either. None of the three of us knows why we're suppose to avoid leather today. This seems random and nonsensical. 

But. I am learning that I can actually get past my urges and that I have more willpower than I thought. That feels good. It is useful to know that I can force myself to endure a little hardship. I now know that I could get through much worse from necessity if I can push myself through this little thing by choice. We all want to know we’re made of strong stuff, and I have suspected that I really, really ain’t. No strong stuff here. I mean, beyond enduring childhood and all that. Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe I can have more confidence in my stuff. Maybe it is stronger than I thought. And I know that if others around me show their strong stuff, I can gain strength from that, too.

The 16-year-old is working on college essays on an empty stomach. The 13-year-old has just bathed - not for pleasure, I assure you, but out of necessity. She is torturing both of us by talking about grilled cheese and her “famous” (at least around our family) pesto sandwiches. I’m thinking about tuna and my mouth is filling with saliva; but we will be strong. We will make it. 

Moolah

So, Readers, now that we are safely out of the range of New Year’s resolutions, I have another resolution to tell you about. I made it quietly. It wasn’t a sneak-up-on-you resolution like the one I eased into about morning sun salutations. This one is an actual resolution I made, and kept to myself. I know, that’s amazing, right, considering how many things I do tell you? Well, this one was bigger and scarier to me, so I had to keep it quiet, until I was ready to do something about it. I made a promise to myself that I would get a grip on finances. You may recall, from earlier posts, that I have a little problem dealing with finances and moolah. Perhaps I mentioned that under professional advice, I stepped away from paying the bills and turned that over to the husband. This wasn’t because I’m incapable of paying them. It was because I was having panic attacks every time I considered our financial situation. Indeed, under professional advice, I  even stepped away from the husband when he paid the bills, because I had to sit someplace soft with my head between my knees. 

Healthy, no?

NO? 

Well, we could argue about that all day. The fact remains that I was instructed to leave it alone for my own sanity, and so I gladly did. However, that was a few months ago - a few dozen months ago, if I’m honest - which I am, to a fault. As a grown up feminist female, I feel that part of success is handling moolah. So I quietly and silently promised myself that I would take it up again. Look into things. At least check our bank balances. 

I know, a major step. Perhaps you are sputtering at me through the Interwebs. You are sputtering, “Hope, you don’t even check your bank balances?” I am wiping your judgemental spittle off my cheek, Readers. I can only do my best, and even if that best is quite poor, well, it is my best. This goal, getting a grip on the moolah and finances, is a multi-step process. 

So with that in mind, I am proud to tell you that I have just returned from an event called High Anxiety: New York Gen X and Baby Boomers Struggle with Stress, Savings and Security. I went for three reasons:

1. What I said above - to prove I can begin to take control.
2. A writer colleague who helped organize the event lured me by saying it could be blog fodder
3. The husband and I have an appointment with our accountant this afternoon (yet another positive development, I might add,) so I figured I could debrief there.

4. I had to dress nicely, which is something I enjoy.

So, pat, pat, pat. I have taken another step towards financial bravery. 

Ok, to come clean, this event was hosted by the AARP. Which I am apparently eligible to join. (Shhhh, don’t tell the husband. He thinks I’m thirty-nine.) That in itself is embarrassing. Oh, bother, why go there. 

The event was part of a campaign by the AARP to promote a state-facilitated retirement savings option for everyone. The idea would be that part of every paycheck would go into these accounts automatically, the way it might go into a pension if you were lucky enough to work someplace with a pension. This would help keep millions of senior Gen Xers and Boomers off of public assistance in their declining years. Something like that. Basically, the kind of thing that usually sends me into my handbag for the Xanax. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this, but one of my deepest fears is that I’m going to spend my final years impoverished and alone in some state-run nursing home, propped in a collapsible wheelchair dribbling onto a paper bib. Well, the event went over the results of a survey about how worried Gen X and Boomers are about being able to retire.The upshot is that apparently, I am not alone in my anxiety about finances. Apparently 74% of Gen Xers and 67% of Boomers are worried about not saving enough. But the bad news is that there is reason to worry. We are not saving enough. 30% of GenXers in NY have no retirement savings at all.

However, I came away not rattled or needing a Xanax. I came away even more determined to figure out this financial stuff. 

So, pat, pat, pat, I pat myself on the back.

I also took the 11th grader to the bank and opened a new account for her, instructing her to deposit at least 10 percent of her allowance into savings every time.   

Baby steps for you, Readers, perhaps, and baby steps for me, too, it turns out. But - steps. 

#TBT A Parenting Fail

Ok, this is the husband's suggestion, so blame him if you don't like it. What is "this"? Why it's a Throwback Thursday (#TBT) blog post. I wrote this when the 7th grader was in 3rd grade, right at this time of year. I thought it was a fun look back.

Why am I doing this? Aside from being a way to post more frequently, it's a fun way to see where I've been, and how I've looked at success and failure and (of course) myself over the last few years. As my book proposal sits on the desks of editors - please send positive vibes, as many as possible as frequently as possible - I have to admit that things have changed. For the better. Except for my body. But I'm supposed to look at that in a new way: being grateful for my body for being here for me, for being healthy and strong. And so I do. And so I do.

*     *     *

A Parenting Fail

While it's stimulating to discuss theories of success and failure, most of my time is wrapped up in the ongoing venture called motherhood, an endeavor whose ultimate success or failure is my biggest concern, and whose outcome depends on myriad small choices.  Like the following one.

So the 3rd grader is in a school play. Something about fish and finding your unique self.  There has been lots of drama about this play around our house, with involved daily updates about rehearsing for various parts and about when parts would be finally assigned. Each child would rank their first four choices and hand them in to the teacher. Then, one day, accompanied by lots of pouting and complaining, the update was that the 3rd grader's class had agreed to perform the play with another class, which meant each part would be doubled up.

"It's supposed to be a play about finding our own unique selves," she pointed out. "It doesn't work if there are two of everything." Well, she had a point, but two children reciting in unison would be cute, from a parent's point of view. I told my child it would be fine, meanwhile marveling at how much she seemed to care. She's not the most obviously dramatic of my two children, but she was actually in tears.

Two days later, the 3rd grader's traverse from the school bus to the front door looked like the gallows walk. Parts had been assigned. My child had been given her fourth choice, Clownfish 1.

Oh the tears. Oh the misery. So much angst. "Clownfish 1 doesn't even get to tell Swordfish his problem. All the other fish get to tell Swordfish their problem." So there I am, staring at my usually rather stoic child, in tears again, this time over her lack of lines. At least I'm assuming it's a lack of lines that is the problem. I'm also thinking, wow, how did acting get to be so important to this child? She has recently joined an after school acting class, and I guess she really likes it. Maybe she'll become a movie star and I can finally go to the Academy Awards. I hope James Franco won't be hosting by then. Maybe Tina Fey.

Anyway, it seems the trouble is the lack of lines, and that she didn't get her first or second choice part.

So here's where the parenting needs to happen. Do I say, in effect, look, not everyone can get her first or second choice, and some people don't even have a line, so buck up? That's the "Sometimes we don't get exactly what we want but we're all part of a community" lesson.

Or do I say, well, look, if you're really upset, maybe you could talk to your teacher about adding a line to your part, so Clownfish 1 can tell his problem to Swordfish, too? Advocate for yourself. Maybe that's the parenting lesson here.

Reader, I chose the latter. Immediately my child wanted me to e-mail her teacher. No, I said, you can write her a note, or write her an e-mail from my account, and we'll make sure she knows it's from you. So during the 7th grader's piano lesson, the 3rd grader wrote a note, apologizing for being upset and making her suggestion about the line. I open up my e-mail, make the subject line state who the e-mail is from, and my child types out her message and we send it.

Cue to dinner time, when the 3rd grader is relating all the iniquity of the situation to her sister and her father. There's a certain amount of sympathy, and a certain amount of tearful eye-welling.  Before dessert, I check my e-mail. The teacher has responded that she's sorry my 3rd grader is upset; that she'd had her do Clownfish 1 because she got the beats on the humor so well in all the lines. She'll be happy to talk to her about the change tomorrow.

Do I detect a certain weariness?

Lines? Plural? I go back to the table. I confirm with my child that she does, indeed, have several lines.  How did I miss this? How did my child miss this? Now I'm annoyed. And embarrassed.  Look, I tell the child, your teacher gave you a real part with lots of lines and said you're good at it. If you want to be part of a play, you have to accept you might not get the exact part you want. That's the way acting is. At least you got a part. So buck up, quit being so negative, and do your part.

I go back to the computer and send another e-mail to the teacher, subject: Sorry. I tell her I'd encouraged my child to advocate for herself. I had also told her, I assured the teacher, that her request might be denied.

I had a parenting choice, and I made the wrong one. That's what my 7th grader calls "a fail."

Why Do I Do This?

I'm in limbo at the moment. I sent draft #14 of my proposal, including two sample chapters, off to my agent, and now I’m waiting to hear from her. Which leaves me in limbo. O, there are things I ought to do – get camp medical forms to the pediatrician, buy a new lock for the 7^th grader’s locker, and set a regular schedule for blogging outlets, for example – but I am not doing them. I did manage to send off the baby gift to my friend's granddaughter.

So, here are highlights of my thoughts and activities this week. 

Overall, I have spent way too much time 'pon Pinterest, looking at casual fashion.

I spent my birthday, which wasWednesday, in good company. I’m talking ‘bout Sir Elton John, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Gloria Steinem. Speaking for all of us, I can say that we are all glad to be here, and we didn’t need any extra medication to get through it. The family and I went out to dinner and I had a mini-bottle of champagne to myself to celebrate. There was a small contretemps regarding the celebratory cake – as in, someone didn’t order one - but in the end, there was something for me to blow out. A Price Chopper cake with a star candle I saved from the husband’s birthday the other week.

In re: fashion. I have now belted my sweaters twice. That doesn’t mean I put on two belts. I mean that on two different occasions I added a belt OVER my sweater. I accessorized. This is something I never thought I would do in this way. The belted sweater has always seemed too-too. But never say never. Except to culottes, also known as gauchos. Say never to those.  And to jumpsuits. Say never to  any garment you have to remove entirely in order to use the facilities.  

In re: fashion. Due to Pinterest, I have gleaned the following: flared jeans, also known as bell-bottoms are big. Very big. As corroboration, I offer this information. The 13 year old’s school had a career day this week, and she reported on the various careers represented by parent volunteers. Air Force pilot, scrap metal dealer, emergency room doctor, among others. Then, on the way home from my birthday dinner,  she told me that there was a lady at career day wearing flared pants who looked really fashionable. So fashionable, in fact, that she at first thought it might be (from behind) her social studies teacher. But this lady turned out to be a “real estate something” (I quote my child here), and that doesn’t even matter, because the point was that the 13 year old said the flared pants were very flattering and made her legs look really long.

To which the 16 year old said that no one young would "ever ever ever wear flares". To which I said, “never say never” and she said that maybe flares would be popular among the mom crowd, but never in her generation, because HER generation grew up knowing the truth about flared jeans: they are atrocious.

This is a truth I also grew up knowing. Flares, aka bell-bottoms, were feh. As were sweaters with belts. So I remain mum on the flares, aka bell-bottoms question. But not about the gauchos/culottes, or the jumpsuits.

I wish I could tell you that we discussed Kant, or something even more deep. But I cahnt.

In re: success. I had my monthly conference call with my mutual support group, my mini-master minds group a la Napolean Hill, my tiny Junta (Juntita?) a la Benjamin Franklin. An idea and support-sharing group to encourage ourselves to move forward in our lives. Many, many clichés come to mind here. But my point, Readers, was that one of my group members, who is very Type A, told me that after reading my blog about the Pomodoro Method, as well as another article about the same approach, she used it to get through a work deadline. Instead of a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, she used her iPhone’s timer. She set it for fifteen minutes, and every time it sounded, she just hit reset again, until she was done.

Now, I would like to point out that part of the Pomodoro Method is taking short breaks inbetween segments of intense work. Even if you don’t feel like stopping when the timer dings, you are supposed to stop. STOP and recharge. Look at Pinterest, even. I cling to that little break to get me going in the first place. But that is what makes us all so different and interesting, isn’t it? Instead of taking a break, my Type A friend just reboots herself. Pressing the timer seems to be all the break she needs. Gotta love that. I am so not that way.

Other topics: one piece of information I have come up against repeatedly in my success research is this idea that to be really successful, one must engage in meaningful work that benefits others. If you recall, all the way back to Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective (euphemism) People, he talked about building upon strong values and specified that a goal of making money, say, was really not the right approach. One must approach money sideways- like it’s a skittish horse, perhaps. (That's not what S. Covey says, it's just my interpretation.) Because going after money is going to prove ultimately a false value. Money, after a certain amount, doesn’t increase your happiness. But things that make you happy include blah blah and blah and helping people.

So I have asked myself, Readers, how is my research on success going to help anyone? How does my blog help? Will my book help? Well, in conversation with my support group, as one of us talked about a workshop she had attended about newfangled brand building and self-empowerment and stuff, I suddenly saw how I might help others. Because, it has become apparent, I’m not coming up with a definitive definition of success .

I wrote in my journal, my intention is to “go there” in myself – to be open and honest and (one hopes, funny and entertaining) about things that other people might feel a bit uncomfortable exploring. Because my working hypothesis about me and my thoughts and feelings is that if I think it or feel it, then most people do. I'm not so special. So why not get it out there under the light and take a look at it? Reminds me of one night, when I was a kid, and I checked under my bed for monsters, and I saw a grey spot, and I was terrified that it was a big spider. Eventually, I worked up courage to get my father to come in and take it away. And the spot turned out to be a dust bunny. Kinda like that.

Also reminds me of years ago, when the younger daughter was in preschool. I made a less than Pollyanna-like comment about motherhood, possibly something about wanting to flick my children in the backs of their heads from time to time because they were so irritating; the teacher said it was really refreshing to hear someone talk about the frustrations of parenting. And I thought, really, this is unusual? Doesn’t everyone feel this way?

I think that it’s all that therapy I’ve had. I’ve become quite comfortable with layers of ambivalence underlying the most intimate relationships.

Just yesterday, I caught a snippet of a radio interview with some singer-songwriter, talking about how writing about the regular, daily personal stuff is boring; but writing about the deeply personal stuff is not. The deeply personal taps into the universal, and that’s what makes it resonate. Which is what my painter friend Karen Kaapcke said to me once. We were at the Armory Exhibition at the NYState Historical Society. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 was truly spellbinding. That I should just go deep, because that’s where people would meet me.

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, M. Duchamp. 1913?

So that’s what I do here. I hope. ON a good day. Which I don’t think today is. But.

And with that in mind, I will tell you that I spent part of my birthday in the office of a physical therapist for my pelvic floor. But I will not bother you with details about that. I simply write it for you so you know that such a type of physical therapy exists, and that if something is funky with your pelvic floor, there is someone out there who can help you. Me.

Follow-Through

I have a bit of trouble with follow-through, especially when it involves logistics. For example, just last week, I mailed our New Year's cards. Last week also contained the husband's birthday as well as my late mother's and my nephew's, which are the same day. 

I managed to select and send a gift for my nephew, and have it arrive on time. He's six, FYI, and per his mother's suggestion, I purchased something noisy: the DVD of "Big Hero 6." The husband, I'm afraid, fared less well. In short, I ignored the approach of his day until it was upon me. That’s the sad truth. And Google gave away my late gift–getting. When he logged onto the computer to update the crossword blog, banner ads for bacon of the month and warm hats with earflaps proliferated. Surprise! (Not so much.)

I’m a bad wife.
Heck, I’m a bad person.
At the very least, I’m a bad gift-giver.
See, I forget about birthdays.

But that’s not my only failing, gift-wise. There’s a gift for my father (Hi, Dad!) on the windowsill of the study. It’s been there since well before Xmas. It’s been there since before my last trip to Washington, in fact, where I bought him another gift, intending to send the windowsill gift later – but in time for Xmas.

And there’s the baby gift for my friend’s granddaughter. It’s all wrapped up with a curly ribbon. Make that a limp, crumpled curly ribbon, since the package has been moving from the dining room table to the kitchen counter to the dining room table to the kitchen counter for umpteen months. Why, you ask? Maybe it’s me balking at having a friend with a granddaughter. That would be a handy excuse. But really, the reason is much more banal. See, I lost the daughter’s address AND forgot the daughter’s husband’s name and I’m too embarrassed to ask my friend for these pieces of information a second time. So this gift is waiting, wrapped. Probably until another friend has another grandchild, because this one has developed past the appropriate age for this gift that I got her six months ago.

However, that is not what I set out to write about. I set out to write about meditation. Specifically, how I can persist in not doing it while simultaneously longing to. As if choosing to sit myself down and breathe is beyond my ability. As if it were as difficult as, say, my daughters’ math homework.

But I digress. Meditation is something I want to do. It is also something against which, now that it has become so popular that the term “mindfulness” is bandied about by everyone except my father and my mother-in-law, I have some kind of knee-jerk reaction. Even though I’ve been meditating – off and on – for a very long time. I can't bring myself to do it now. I can't get back to the cushion. Even the thought of Goldie Hawn blissing out since circa 1972, and Jerry Seinfeld with his TM since circa 1972, and Oprah and Arianna and on and on. I can't.

Gotta love Goldie. And she's helping kids with mindfulness. 

I tried meditation for the first time my senior year of college, for krike’s sake. In my dorm room one afternoon, I sat criss-cross-apple-sauce on one of those large, ubiquitous student dorm cushions. Before I knew it, Readers, I was hovering just below the ceiling, looking down upon myself. Like in that scene in Mary Poppins where they laugh their way up to the ceiling. It was the strangest feeling, detached and peaceful. After a few minutes, I thought, “Uh, maybe I’m not ready for this.” And down I came, gently.  I put aside meditation for a decade or so, until I had a child and was well into yoga.

Well, I didn't mean to catalogue my history with meditation. My point, and I think I may have one, was to show that I have a history with meditation, and that therefore, my current resistance to it is strange. Now that more and more studies come out showing that meditation does work, to some degree, to make people happier, more centered, more positive, more equanamous. Or at least less stressed. I know it works. It has worked for me before. You’d think I’d be all over it. But something about the ubiquity turns me off. It’s little of that fear of people thinking I’ve jumped on the bandwagon now that it’s hit the main strip. And so what? Why does that bother me? You know, as I think about it, I practically hear my mother(step) ridiculing me for wanting to dress like other kids back in high school. Shades of, “If everyone jumped off the Empire State building, would you do it, too?” Is that it? My mother's (step) voice is holding me back? Pul-ease.

Ridiculous, I know. Hard to shake, too.

On a more practical level, I guess there’s another reason. It has to do with the limits of meditation. It’s not in fact a cure-all. As I discovered last year, when I was so terribly, terribly anxious. Meditation hadn’t staved that off. I needed a pill. So then what was the point? I was mad at myself for not being able to overcome my own anxiety with the power of my will to meditate.

And the pills made me feel better. So then I didn’t need to meditate.

But there is a little voice inside me reminding me that now is the time to build up the habit. Now, when I feel good, when I don’t need it, is the time to practice. So that next time, if there is a next time, that the "mean reds" overcome me, I will have enough mileage behind the meditation practice that it just might be all I need. I need to speak to that internal admonitory voice. I need to tell it this. “Just because everyone is into it, doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.” I’m talking about meditation. I don’t need to prove I did it before it went mainstream. I just need to do it again.

Success and Jalopies

Now seems like a good time to check in with those New Year resolutions. It’s the end of February, and my email inbox and Twitter feed are full of strategies for implementing habits, keeping resolutions, and bits about why We Are Failing To Do So.

When I say “we” I mean me. I was struggling to get my routine back on track. I mentioned in my New Year’s post that I have enough resolutions to keep me busy. Except what happened was that the wheels fell off the jalopy. The system broke. As it is wont to do, from time to time. In my healthy, long-view of life, I realize that it’s all about breaking down and revving up again. System breakdown is part of the system. 

But, now, Readers, I’m improving. See, when I realized that my jalopy needed an overhaul, I began reading those things about success and habits that, handily, poured into my email inbox. Apparently, I’m not the only one with a broken down jalopy.

This tidbit came to me, via Brain Pickings, which is a really great blog, by the way. This is an excerpt from a Vanity Fair profile of President Obama:

“You need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. ‘You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,’ he said. ’I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.’ He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. ‘You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.’” http://explore.noodle.com/post/31869759671/you-need-to-remove-from-your-life-the-day-to-day

To be frank, wavering over what to wear is one of the things I enjoy, at least sometimes, so I don’t want a uniform. However, I do make too many decisions. I can’t settle on a routine. There’s dithering and deciding many mornings. Should I do sun salutations or physical therapy stretches or deep breathing or meditation? Should I go to the gym right after the kids are out of the house, or should I sit down at the computer and write? All these decisions lead to fatigue and naps. And putzing around on Facebook and email. Or, in scientific terms, willpower depletion. 

This quotation from President Obama reminded me of something Matthew Seyd wrote about chess players in the book Bounce; namely, that what makes chess masters so great is not superior intelligence, but that they have practiced so many chess moves so often that they’ve memorized sequences. They have routinized (thanks, President Obama – my Word dictionary doesn’t recognize this neologism, but if Jimmy Joyce could invent words, you can, too) and automated hundreds and hundreds of moves. Consequently, they have brain energy to spare to figure out what to do in a challenging game.

Around this time, whilst putzing around on FB and email I came across inspiration via an email from an online Pilates teacher. She was writing about developing consistency in exercise, but I think we can extrapolate to other areas of life. According to Robyn Long, the secret to building and maintaining fitness is to set one goal at a time. A person can get overwhelmed with goals and give up, whereas if you pick one and stick to it, you develop the habit.

So, I decided I needed to be more like President Obama (who doesn’t, really?), more like a chess master, more like a Pilates instructor. I needed to routinize more of my system. If I did more things automatically, out of habit, then I would have fewer decisions to make about how to use my time. Fewer decisions would mean more energy. Then I would have more willpower left to take on the more challenging parts of my routine.

Key to success here seemed to be choosing an easy thing to automate. Something non-threatening (not writing, obviously), something to just get out of the way first thing. Like teeth brushing, or putting on deoderant. I chose sun salutations. They’re yoga, and they’re meditative, and they’re brainless.

That was over two weeks ago, Readers. I’ve kept up my streak. Even when I threw my back out last week, I managed to creak through a few sad ones. They were less sun salutations than sun grovels, but I counted them.

I don’t feel more like President Obama, and certainly not like a chess master. Pilates instructor?  A little. But I do feel more like Jerry Seinfeld, who has a famous work ethic – he X’s every day on the calendar that he works on jokes, and never gives up on his streak.

The best thing, really, is that once I’ve got that first wheel back on the jalopy, the others are easier. Soon, I’ll be rolling on to new things.

Speaking of jalopies rolling - the 16-year-old drove home from the library yesterday. I thought it went very well, and I only stepped on the imaginary brake for half the ride. However, to the husband she reported that the whole thing was “stressful” and that there was “too much to think about.”

Then the husband and I said, “That’s because it’s all new to you.” We kind of raced each other to say it first, I think, but I’m not sure. I can only speak for myself, and in this instance, I don’t want to. If you follow. 

Anyway, then he said, “Once you get more practice, a lot of it will become automatic and you won’t have to think about it.” You’ll know how far to let the steering wheel turn to straighten out, and you’ll have memorized the rules of the road. And the more stuff becomes automatic, the less energy you have to expend on it.

“Wow, I just drafted a blog post on this topic,” I said.

And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty of routine.

Keeping Promises to Myself

I have twenty minutes until the 13-year-old’s friends arrive to celebrate her birthday with pizza and cake and sleepover. An hour after they are due, one of my book clubs is meeting here at our house for dinner and intellectual conversation and cake. No sleepover.

Intellectual conversation. Oops, there’s the timer for the cake!

Intellectual conversation might be a stretch. I’m intellectually depleted. Today I gave a thirty minute talk on Shakespeare and how the Gunpowder Plot affected him, so tonight, I relax. I relax as much as is possible with several 13 year old girls in the house.

Anyway, I now have fifteen minutes to get out a blog post. I could wait and write something amazing and coherent – but why start now? I’m trying to stick to my goals this week. I promised myself I would accomplish two writing goals, and so I shall. The first was to write that paper on Shakespeare for the women's club to which I belong. The second was to get out a blog post. 

Sticking to goals is one of those things I do intermittently. It hasn’t gotten to be habitual for me, yet. But I’m working on it. 

So. Last week I mentioned I would talk about the Pomodoro Technique. I'm not sure why we don’t call it the Tomato Method. It’s based on the timer that the method’s originator used, one of those kitchen timers that looks like a tomato. Or a pomadoro. If we’re Italian, which I guess maybe we would prefer to be. Because, you know, of that European sophistication. Pomodoro sounds so much nicer than tomato, I suppose.

But I digress. The tomato method is a fancy term for what I tell my kids to do when they have a difficult challenge: work steadily for a short time, then take a short break; then return to work. Use a timer if you like. Be sure to take advantage of the short break.

Now, I can report to you, Readers, that this method worked for me this week, as I was racing to finish my reading and note-taking and then to write my paper on Shakespeare. I didn’t use a tomato, though. I used my iPhone. I set it for 20 minutes. Then took a short break. Then back for another twenty minutes.

I have to say, it worked really well. And I even found myself wanting to work through my short breaks. Interesting, I thought. I made myself take the breaks, though, and they did refresh me.

So. Pomodoro-tomato-good sense technique, thank you.

By the way, it occurs to me that I worked my way up to the PomTech, I didn't just dive right in. I started, in fact, with the Inverse Pomodoro Technique. This is a method by which you relax and delay for a longish time, then get down to work for a short, non-threatening amount of time, then repeat. 

*

Also in the news this week:  My $13 chocolate bar is still here. It is not totally gone. I have managed to exercise my willpower and have made it last. 

Small victory. I will bear it in mind, as I deal with the reality that now I am the mother of two teenaged girls.

* 

Also, last week I mentioned I had some news. Well, here it is. I have a literary agent. That's all I can say for now. 

Mastery and Success

Seems that I have some readers who want to keep me on task. I’m basing this conclusion on the suggestions of books and Ted talks that come through my inbox. I appreciate them all! Diverting! And I get to watch things on a screen and consider it “work.”

One thing I watched was this Ted talk by someone called Sarah Lewis on the benefits of the “near win,” a.k.a. failure. Inevitably, the topic sailed right out at me, it being so salient to my situation. I am so very, very familiar with failure. My entire career has been a “near win.” That’s okay, according to Sarah Lewis, because failure is what we experience on the way to mastery. And mastery is ultimately more important than success.

Easy for Sarah Lewis to say. She’s the one giving the TED talk. She is an art historian and critic, and apparently has a book about failure and creativity. This isn’t about sour grapes, though. It’s about learning to cope with who I am.

Sarah Lewis defines success as a “moment.” That is a way of looking at it. I agree, I think. Success is a byproduct of effort. However, what she calls “mastery” I might call mastering; that is, engaging in working towards something. Or having a system for continuing to set and reach for goals. As I’ve mentioned before being engaged in that system, or in mastering a new goal, makes me feel successful. Purposeful effort makes life juicy and interesting.

This TED talk reminded me of something I read in Matthew Seyd’s Bounce, which focused on techniques for improving athletic performance. Most of practice is failing. For example, an ice skater spends every practice trying to refine upon and improve technique to accomplish the next challenge, the next turn, inevitably more complicated than the previous one. She spends most of that time trying and falling, trying and falling, until she manages her triple lutz. Then it’s on to the quadruple. When you think about it, most of the time, she’s experiencing the near win. But in context, it doesn’t feel like failure.

This also reminds me of certain teenaged ballet dancers I know. To hear them talk about their efforts after class, you'd think they would have quit years ago. They're almost never satisfied. They are always mastering, and so very rarely feeling successful. Yet they go on. And on. And on. The effort keeps them engaged, and they learn from their mistakes. They are always refining.

Well, I also feel that I have been more involved in the near win than I’d like to remain; yet I see the value of near-wins. Also, I feel that although success may be just a moment, it’s a moment I’d like to experience, and to memorialize, if possible with an attractive photo. Or an award. An award would be nice. But an attractive photo of myself would also be good. Or money. Yes, some money would also suffice.

Anyway, the point is that one has to be involved in mastering or mastery. One must be striving, according to Sarah Lewis, for more than one can possibly achieve. To do this, to keep reaching for the out of reach goal, one must have a functioning system of effort. One must have those habits, that routine, those goals, and that willpower. Otherwise, there will be no moments of success as byproduct. And Readers, I want a couple of those byproducts before I die.