Getting Grit

Yesterday I went to Pilates at the gym. When I returned home, I washed my face as usual with witch hazel on a round cotton pad. These cotton rounds are from France, by the way, which makes them extra special, and they have one side that’s a little rough. This is probably for exfoliation. I am assuming so, after much time wasted on articles on skin care over my now rather lengthy lifetime. There’s no explanation on the packaging. This is because all French people are born knowing about exfoliation. 

That last statement was a generalization and a stereotyping and it was BAD because stereotyping people is BAD. The stereotype is that all French people know more about beauty and style than everyone else, which you know, because it’s a stereotype. But it was also funny. And it’s a thing we tend to do: group people by identifying characteristics. So that’s a thing that’s problematic. (I’m with you, Tina, even if I cringed a little at your recent “sheetcaking” rant.) 

Anyway, as I was wiping witch hazel across my face with the exfoliating side, I noticed that the exfoliation seemed much deeper, stronger, and more pronounced than usual. It felt pretty good, and as if it might actually leave me with younger, glowier skin (always a plus). After a moment, I leaned into the mirror and rubbed my fingers over my face. I discovered it was covered in sand. I had grit.

Because I was at the beach, Readers. And so was my yoga mat. Not that it got much use. Or any, come to think of it. But it was there, and it was often covered in sand because it was at the bottom of the pile of beach chairs and boogie boards and towels in the back of the car. So when I finally unrolled my mat at the gym yesterday, I realized I had brought a little bit of the beach home with me. I had gotten grit. 

Did you miss me? I missed you, I promise. However, I was too busy boogie boarding and reapplying sunscreen (young and glowy, remember that’s the goal) and often shivering since the weather wasn’t as warm as it could have been to write. 

Wow, I was wondering how that sandy face thing related to this topic and here it is. Grit. I got it. So much of it. All over my face and body. I was just covered in grit, which seems like a good segue-way. I have been reading up on grit. 

Right off, I must ‘fess up that I haven’t worked on my book in two weeks. And when I get away from my writing, I begin to question if I can ever get back to it. This leads me into doubt about my project, doubt about my ability, and also doubt about my willpower, as well as into frustration with myself for letting time expand so freely. 

Anyway. Grit. Perhaps I don’t have as much as I thought, I thought, and I sat down to read Getting Grit by Caroline Adams Miller, which is exactly as advertised, a book about taking Angela Duckworth’s research on grit and success to the masses and helping us get more of it. It’s well-written and well-organized, and she works in the research and terminology in an organic way, so the reader learns new terms and what they mean in context and it all slides down nice and easy. 

There I am reading along her outline of her program to help readers develop grit and I am thinking I do have a lot of grit. I do need to finish the book, though, because apparently there is good grit (authentic) and not-so good grit. Knowing me, I have the not-so-good kind. I haven’t gotten to what that is yet, but if it has anything to do with a persistence in self-flagellation and a floundering in the quicksand of self-criticism and self-doubt, then, yep, I’ve got it. 

I had this little moment while reading about Caroline’s coaching. This little voice in my head whispered, “When the student is ready….” and the joke Anne Lamott tells about the guy whose plane crashes in the dessert and he prays to God to save him. Then a guy with a camel comes by and asks if he needs help and the pilot dude says, “No, I’m waiting for God.” and another person comes by and offers help. Same answer. Until somehow the guy is in communication with God herself and complains, “I prayed and prayed but you never answered my prayers.” And God says, “What are you talking about? I sent you the guy with the camel and the other guy. “

So I’m thinking, maybe Caroline Adams Miller is my guy with a camel. So that’s good. And guess what? There’s another quiz! Everyone likes a quiz. 

Caroline Adams Miller recommends the Values in Action Character Strength Assessment (VIA).* So I go to the website and I take the quiz which has 120 questions. I get my assessment, which lists about 20 qualities and highlights your top 5. I get mine, and they are as follows:

judgement

fairness

love of learning

humor 

zestperseverance 

That’s 6, not 5, but zest and perseverance were tied. As were fairness, humor, and love of learning. So why didn’t they give me a top 8? But whatever?

I have to admit this list disappointed me. I mean, creativity was near the bottom, which seems crazy. Also, spirituality was absolute lowest, and yet I meditate daily. Furthermore, I liked Caroline’s strengths better. She mentions them in the book. Love, creativity, zest, bravery, and wisdom. I liked those. And I like to think I have some wisdom. At least a little. 

So I obsessed about that for a little while. Then I inspected my results again. I saw that wisdom was not even listed on the chart of the quiz I took. It wasn’t one of the qualities. Was that because the test is slightly different than the one Caroline took? Or am I so lacking in wisdom it wasn’t even in my top 20????

Then, what was this judgment thing I was doing? As in, judging my results? As in, assuming some results are “better” than others. What was that about? 

I’ll tell you what: In the book, Caroline Adams Miller mentions that several character traits “among the ones that I know will be important for grit are self-regulation, sense of purpose, hope, zest, humility, and bravery.” And I have one of them in my top five. ONE. And one of those top qualities she lists isn’t even on my LIST.

So the LIST must be different from hers. And I didn’t have ACCESS to that one. Which meant I could spend some time on the Interwebs searching for the same list she had, or I could go and work on my book. And which do you think I did? 

Neither, Readers. Instead, I take the test again. This time I manage my answers so as to score much higher in creativity, but still no wisdom (not there) and no sense of purpose (not there) and no humility, bravery, nor self-regulation. 

Things were not looking so good for my grit level at this point, which was in contrast to the Duckworth Grit Scale, by the way, on which I scored pretty high. Go figure. 

I was not finished with this character survey stuff. So, after some additional moments of research, I discovered that UPenn, home of Positive Psychology, has a website with TONS of quizzes.** There’s a place to register and you can take bazillions. I found a different version of the VIA. It was longer, with 240 questions rather than 120. That seemed promising, so I took it.

According to the UPENN Authentic Happiness quiz, my top character strengths are as follows:

Fairness, equity, and justice 

Curiosity and interest in the world 

Forgiveness and mercy 

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness 

Kindness and generosity 

So, what to say? I liked this test better. It was longer, and the answers were more discursive. However, these traits were not so different from the results of the other quiz. Zest was missing, and that was one of the qualities that appealed. Still no wisdom, bravery, or self-regulation and those other things that are key to grit, but they are not bad. 

Let us remember that this quiz is about strengths, so none of the characteristics is bad. I realize I am talking to myself here, but it seems like a good thing to remember. Sort of a straighting of the cap to remind myself this is not about finding out I am lacking important qualities. It’s about assessing my strengths and then using them productively. To grow my dang grit. That’s the message from Caroline Adams Miller’s book: you can increase your grit and she will tell you how. And I will tell you how after I finish the book. I got a little side-tracked. At least I demonstrated a couple of my character strengths in pursuit of identifying them. And I am happy to offer you, Readers, a couple of places for you to assess —or obsess—over your top five character strengths. 

Remember to exfoliate. 

*www.viacharacter.org

**https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/

To Thine Own Self Be True

Nora Ephron’s voice reminds me of mine. It’s a lot stronger, more confident, more full of panache, but the inflections and repetitions are like mine. I was thinking this while reading Heartburn in my Nora Ephron reader instead of writing this morning. It’s a funny book. I was listening to the sounds in my head. It read like a movie script. It read like her essays. Her voice came through even in that novel, which I think was her only novel, published in 1983. She wrote most everything she became really famous for after that novel, for which she became famous, and which she published at 42, if Wikipedia is correct. I was lying in bed in my fuzzy bathrobe with my feet under the quilt thinking my writing sounds kind of like Nora’s. Then, before I could stop myself, I was also thinking about the article I glimpsed in the  Sunday paper but was too traumatized by to actually read. It was an article, probably in the Book Review, about an author who was a huge bestselling writer in the 1950s, a huge - yuuuuge - success in other words, but who is now forgotten. I’m sure it was about how often that kind of thing happens. The being forgotten part, I mean. It’s about what I aspire to, isn’t it? I mean, it would be foolish to aspire to more than being forgotten. I mean, no one thinks they’re going to be Jane Austen. Or Jane Jacobs. No Janes. The most people think about when they think about writing success is The New York Times Bestseller List. No one thinks beyond the list. Everyone wants to be on it. But how many people on it today will be remembered tomorrow? 

Just glimpsing that article and skimming the first paragraph was enough to trigger a total confidence meltdown and an upsurge in my sense of futility. This coincided with me coming across a job opening at a good non-profit company that does Important Work. They are looking for a manager of the communications department, which reminded me that perhaps I would have been and maybe still would be much better off with some kind of office job involving writing, no matter how boring, because I would be able to look people in the eye and say I was something and did something. And prove it. I could wave a pay stub at them. Or maybe an employee identification card of some kind. Plus I would see other human adults every day. And I would have to get dressed. Lately I am interested in both dressing nicely and also remaining attached to my fluffy bathrobe. When I say attached, I mean inside it. Like, wearing it. 

Why was I lying in my fluffy bathrobe on my already made bed instead of working on my book? Well might you ask, Readers. After all, I have had a discussion on a telephone involving an agent and an editor at a reputable publishing house that has resulted in an invitation to submit more work. So why am I not scrabbling and scrambling to pull together more work? 

Two reasons. One, I have an overly expansive view of time. I’m “taking a couple of days”, suggested by my agent, to think over the conversation with the publisher before fishing around in my book drafts for more material to revise. A couple of days from the conversation would have brought me to Saturday. Today is Wednesday following. See - expansive. But I don’t think my agent meant to include the weekend. I went away for the weekend to visit family in Washington. So how could the weekend count. So, really, it’s only been four days….

Two, I am procrastinating. 

Look how cute my dog is.

The shade of Steven Pressfield holding a copy of The War of Art in one hand and Do The Work in another is looming. I suppose this means there is a third reason why I’m bathrobe reading. It’s called resistance. This is Steven Pressfield’s big thing. His hook. His battering ram. Artists must battle the forces of resistance before creating art, and resistance takes many forms. Resistance is the obvious, the procrastination, for example, which bleeds into that overly expansive view of time that stretches a couple of days into several, then weeks, months, and years. Resistance, I’m sure Steven Pressfield would say, is also the sense of futility and the fear underlying the futility. So in a sense, there is only one reason I’m not working on the book. Resistance. It’s kind of the alpha and the omega of excuses. 

Maybe this is a good moment to mention the episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in which Titus gets back out there and goes on auditions for bit parts. Titus comes across an older actor, kind of his nemesis. Nemesis is the wrong word. This actor is the thing Titus fears turning into if he actually gets out there and tries. An actor whose most prominent roles have been as corpses on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. An actor who has been attending the same auditions for the same bit parts as Titus - for fifty years. Titus is depressed by this. As am I. 

This actor has attained kind of the level of success I have as a writer, in other words. Only this actor is pretty happy with his career and his life. He’s satisfied. 

And then he dies. And Titus goes to his funeral. And all the other bit actors on Law and Order are there, and Ice T, the rapper/actor gives a eulogy. Ice T says this guy, this older actor, had a full and happy life. Ice T says this actor was a success because “he was to his own self true.” Which brings me back to Nora Ephron and her voice. Which is really about me and my voice. Which is really about you and your voice. Voice here represents not just expressing yourself in writing, but expressing that thing that is most you. To do that - well, it’s a deceptively simple thing to do. It's also the thing that will fill you with purpose, and therefore, it is the thing you must do.

But to get back to me. In writing, the voice is the thing that brings readers. Nora Ephron found her voice and she expressed it in novels, essays, and on film. It’s a consistent voice - because it’s hers. And who the heck knows if anyone will remember any of it in fifty or a hundred years? The point is not to think about that. (She said, reminding herself.) The point is that if you need to express your voice, you gotta to thine own self be true. Forget about who said it (Polonius to Hamlet) and therefore whether it is actually good advice. Sadly, or happily, that is me. I’ve found my voice these last few years, through my blog. I have the need to be true to it. It’s similar to Nora’s (maybe), but also different, since it’s mine. Sadly, Nora isn’t here anymore to write in her funny, wise voice. I’m here, though. I’m available to write in mine. It’s a bit grandiose and presumptuous to think this - and yet, splayed on the bed holding the very thick compendium of her writings, which includes her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, I did think that perhaps I can pick up her baton. Since she’s not here anymore, I mean. There’s room for my voice. I intend to use it to carry my book. There’s room for my voice. 

5 Tips for Success

Heh, heh. Gotcha again, didn't I? This post has nothing to do with success. I have things of import to report, but not yet. Instead, I offer highlights of my week.  Some of my readers might actually prefer this type of post to ones that purport to give information about success. 

1. I spent $13 on a chocolate bar. That's what I said. Thirteen dollars on a chocolate bar. Why did I spend so much money on a chocolate bar, you ask? Well.

• It was French. 
• The bar was made by a family business that specializes in small batch chocolate. 
• I was supporting the very great cheese store in Albany run by young cheese travelers. If you recall, in a previous post I mentioned eating candy that looked like olives. Also French. Also from The Cheese Traveler. 

The cost did give me pause. Thirteen dollars for a chocolate bar. I haven’t finished it yet. I’ve hidden it from my family. It’s meant to prove my worth. What I mean is that it’s my test of myself. My willpower. Can I eat it slowly and s-a-v-o-u-r it? Can I get really mindful about that chocolate and make a little go a long way? In other words: Am I a worthy human? That’s what this $13 chocolate bar is going to tell me.

Yes, I know the label reads backwards. I used PhotoBooth and that's what I got. 

Or maybe it’s telling me I’m an idiot for spending so much on one edible chocolate item.

2. I bought jeans. Yes, I know, this may not seem momentous to you, Readers. Unless you are female. If you are male, you likely stride into the jeans store, pick jeans with your measurements, pay for them, and leave. When you get home, and put them on, they fit. No big deal. But if you’re a woman, well, I think I can assume you know how momentous this is. Jeans. Jeans that fit. Jeans that look okay. Jeans from, of all places, The Gap. Never have I been so happy to learn that midrise and high rise jeans are back in style. And I didn’t have to pay $200 for them, either.

Not that I’m a style-obsessed person. Not at all. (It’s chocolate that obsesses me.)  It’s just that I happen to have a 16 year old, as I may have mentioned, and it hasn’t escaped me that while once she wore jeans that came up to just above her hip bone, now she is wearing jeans that end at her lower ribs.

Okay, I lied. I'm not really obsessed with chocolate. And I am interested in style. Perhaps more than I should be. But that's another story. 

This look, by the way, is one that only a 16 year old should try. For moi, it was midrise all the way. Locking in that muffin top, instead of watching it drip over the top of the jeans like a cake batter en route from mixing bowl to pan.

“How vivid,” as Auntie Mame might say.

Another reason to pass the $13 chocolate bar test. Square by square.

3. I bought a desk. Yes, I did. Me very own desk. In me very own study. No longer shall I take over the dining room table, because I have a nice, wide surface in me own study. This may not seem impressive to many of you, but I assure you, it’s a big step. Admitting I need a desk. You see, the desk and the need versus want thing is very complex in me. I mean, when it comes to having the basics covered, I do. I had a desk. It was just a very small desk. It was so small that I had to work on the dining room table if I wanted to have any reference materials or paper beside me in addition to my computer. And I have a dining room table. Well, technically, it’s an IKEA table with a plank of plywood on top, covered with a tablecloth. But it’s a table. So I had a desk AND a table. What possible reason could I have to justify a different desk?

See what I did there, Readers? I can bring myself down, way, way, down, by allowing that Superego voice in my head to say, “A desk. You think you need a desk. Somewhere in Africa (or India) someone is writing a masterpiece on a plank of petrified elephant hide. You don’t need a desk. You want a desk. And wanting is wrong.”

Shut up, Superego.

4. The husband went away to a conference, as is his wont every February. This is the signal to the universe to snow, to wreak some kind of havoc on the house, or to cause everyone left behind to come down with an intestinal illness. This time, it was snow, again. But I was ready. Or my plan was to be ready. Before he left, the husband gave me instructions on using the snowblower. 

Let me pause here to beg you, please, to refrain from telling me what wonderful exercise shoveling snow is, or how bad snowblowers are for the environment. I know. I know. But I have a bad back and a bad arm and, and, and. Lord, I sound defensive.

Reroute. Anyway, I was able to do everything necessary with the snowblower, except turn it on. There is a ripcord or something that you have to pull up and out really fast to get the engine to turn over. Well, I was too short to pull it out. Just a slight problem. Luckily, there is Facebook. I took my problem to FB. I believe this is called “crowdsourcing.” One of my Facebook friends suggested I stand on something. Genius! So, in the morning, which was a snowday, while the husband was tucked into his hotel in Nashville (This is a lot better than previous locations, such as Honolulu and San Diego. Talk about grounds for grudge-holding), I stood on a stepstool and got that machine going.

5. Got my 10,000 steps on Mrs. Withingston every day. 

Thank you for reading, readers. I have news for you soon. Also tips on success. Upcoming: Pomodoro Method. 

Lena Dunham and Me

I read Lena Dunham’s book Not That Kind of Girl and I liked it. I’ve gotta say it. She’s been getting a  lot of press, some of it accusing her of being weirdly interconnected with, and possibly abusive of, her younger sister. I gotta say I enjoyed the book. She’s funny. She’s young, sure.Painfully so, when I consider that she could be my child. Or rather, that I could have a child her age. Ouch. But she has some self-awareness, thanks to mucho therapy. You know how I feel about therapy. NO? Well, nevermind. I might turn you off by saying more.

How I feel about keeping Lena's book out so long.  

Anyway, my point. Despite all the negative press she has received, mostly from conservatives, I don’t think she wrote anything particularly disturbing about her relationship with her sister. Yes, she did look in her sister’s vagina, when her sister was a toddler and she was six years older than that. But it was because her sister had inserted marbles in there. I would have looked, too. And then she told their mother, and then her mother got to remove them. Ah, the joys of parenthood. Just the other day I was wondering WHEN my children might learn to throw up in the toilet. TMI? Sorry.

Anyway, yes, she shared a bed with her sister, and seems to have tried to lavish her with love as if her sister were her baby. This behavior is so classic I don’t even need a psych degree to analyze it. Let’s just say I was more direct in expressing my jealousy. I simply tried to kill my sister (six and a half years younger, like Lena’s younger sister) by holding her nose. When I let go, her nostrils stuck together briefly, and I panicked.

I like to think this is one of the reasons my sister grew up to be the excellent psychotherapist and psychoanalyst she is.

People’s reactions to Lena Dunham and her book reminded me of an incident regarding Harriet the Spy. The younger daughter and I read it for our mother-daughter book club. Thing is, as a kid, I loved Harriet the Spy. I related to Harriet. I was a writer. We had a housekeeper (a series of them, actually) with whom I had relationships. I even made a spy route around my neighborhood and wrote about it in a notebook. I knew what a dumbwaiter was because my nursery school was in an old mansion that had one. But when the younger generation read the book they couldn’t relate to Harriet. They thought she was spoiled and super rich. Yet I and my schoolmates and neighborhood friends all lived the same way. Many or most of us had housekeepers and working parents and went to private schools. It wasn’t so hard to achieve that standard of living back then.

Which is, I guess, why so many people feel that Lena Dunham is hopelessly privileged. By the standards of these times, she is. Most of the children I know do not have regular housekeepers or nannies. That style of living is out of reach for most people now. This seems like a tangible expression of those stagnant wages and real earnings I’ve heard so much about on the news. You know the stuff about how since the 1970s, people’s incomes haven’t actually kept pace with price increases and other economic stuff I know nothing about. But I do know about therapy and private schools and how my kids don’t get those things – but I did.

So I liked her honesty and her tone and her self-deprecating humor. And I guess I just don’t find her upbringing threatening.

In short, I related to Lena. How could I not, when she writes things like, “The germophobia morphs into hypochondria morphs into sexual anxiety morphs into the pain and angst…?” Sure, she was talking about middle school. I have never been that extreme. Although, come to think of it, in 7^th grade I fell under the spell of that saying, “See a pin, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck. See a pin, let it lay, [something one syllable I can’t remember or never knew] bad luck is here to stay.” This meant that I had to pick up every safety pin I saw. Readers, there were so many of them. I hung each new find on a big pin I’d come across, sort of like safety-pin art, and I’d have to carry this set of pins with me. Eventually, I was pinning that bunch of safety pins to my underwear for protection every day. I think this stopped only when my stepmother asked with irritation why all my underpants had holes at the waistband and fear knocked some sense into me. I realized I couldn’t indulge this kind of obsessive behavior. I moved on to something more normal, picking my split ends.

Confession time.* I had this post about Lena Dunham almost ready a while ago. Back in ’14, I believe. But I didn’t get a chance to finish it. I think I had too much procrastinating to do. Then the book was due at the library. I love the library. And I couldn’t renew it because there is a waiting list for it. But I couldn’t return it because I had to look up a couple things to quote for you, Readers. Then it was Christmas and everything got “tidied up” around the house. This is shorthand for saying I lost it. But then I found it again, after New Year’s, and I returned the book. I promise I did.

How do you feel about overdue library books? I used to worry about them. I tried never to have overdue books. However, unlike my MIL, who has never returned a book late to the library, I have become a compulsive late returner. Worse, instead of feeling bad about this, I feel okay, because I know I’m performing a service to the library. They count on those overdue fees to contribute to their budget items. So, it’s actually a good deed, a veritable mitzvah, to return them late. As long as you pay those fines.

So what did I want to quote? Well, I intended to illustrate my statement that the book is funny and well–written. That Dunham, while young, is reasonably self-aware, thanks to a lot of therapy, about which she writes at length. She’s aware of how people view her – as a privileged, white, New Yorker. At the same time, she’s only in her late twenties, so she’s still got limited awareness of herself and a limited scope of interest. But she puts it out on the page well. For example, on page 46, she recounts a moment at college (Oberlin), where someone points out her sheltered upbringing by calling her “Little Lena from Soho.”

            “What a snarky jerk,” she writes. “(Obviously I later slept with him.)”

            Come on, that’s funny.

            If I could put myself out there on the page and be honest and raw and funny and insightful and get PUBLISHED and PAID to do so, I’d feel successful. Oh, yeah.

*Rereading this, to implement the fixes the husband pointed out were needed, this strikes me as hilarious, following as it does the paragraph about my 7th grade OCD. Not to mention the attempted suffocation of my sister. Like that wasn't a confession??

Habit Forming Can Be Habit Forming

Well, I sure hope so. That’s why I’m doing my parallel NaNoWriMo challenge: to establish a habit of writing a minimum number of words every day. Why? Because I’m so easily thrown by my self-doubts or my doctor’s appointments or the dog needing a walk or my self doubts – oops I already said that. I guess I mean it. I can get derailed so easily. I hit a tough spot in my writing. Next thing I know, I’m eating almonds and catching up on the latest Nordic Noir my MIL recommends. I’d like to establish that habit of regular words so that I keep working even when the self-doubt fairy comes to interrupt me. Like Trollope, known for his excellent, regular work ethic. Just to name one exemplary author. And he managed to write over forty books. I’m hoping that if I establish this habit then a day or two of total dreck won’t send me into a spiral of despair and turn me into a harpy harping on the husband and the children. Instead of a spiral of despair, I’ll weather it ass in chair.

That has a nice rhyme.

So now that November is almost half over, how am I doing? Thank you very much, I am doing very well. I have cranked out the requisite number of words, plus more. And I have weathered several spells, including one today, of the self doubt fairy beating me about the head with whispers about the futility of my work, of writing in general, and of my very existence. As I told my neighbor across the street via text: Ass in chair.

I enjoy being crass.

But this post is about more than establishing my word count habit. It’s about habit formation.  Over the past two years, here are some habits I’ve formed, or reinforced:

1.     Morning yoga. At least 8 minutes, currently about 15. Thank you, Dr. Oz, though it pains me to say it.

2.     Starting each day with a couple moments thinking of things for which I’m grateful and things for which I wish. Thank you every blogger, women’s mag, book, and inspirational speaker who has suggested this, though I hate to reveal myself as such a joiner.

3.     Daily exercise consisting of at least a constitutional. This has been a habit since high school.

4.     Mid-afternoon snoozle. This one is also a longstanding habit, dating back to before I napped over my keyboard at my job at Widener Library, before college, all the way back to, well, infancy. At this point, the daily snoozle is practically inadvertent. I might still be asleep, for all I know.

Then there are some other daily habits I am trying to establish, aside from the daily word count, such as:

1.     Meditation. Jerry Seinfeld does it every day, and so can I. I’m up to several days a week with this, but not every day. I haven’t found the ideal time for me to sit still yet.

2.     Greeting and saying good-bye to my loved ones such that we can see the whites of each other’s eyes, not shouting from one room to another. And not just because Gretchen Rubin wrote about it in her book.

Well, so much for habit formation. It’s useful, but only half the story. At least for some people, I imagine. Some people might need help breaking habits. Luckily for you poor souls, there is a book on this by one Charles Duhigg, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner.

I haven’t read his book. I personally, Readers – and I am being modest here – haven’t had to break too many bad habits. There was the split end picking I used to do in high school. I’ve since heard that hair picking is indicative of some kind of emotional disturbance, but in my case, I assure you I WAS FINE. TOTALLY. Just a little anorexic and depressed, but NOTHING MAJOR. Eventually, I cut my hair in the mid 80s and got happy and I have almost never picked a split end since then. Partly because I worry my eyes will get stuck.

This has left me with no bad habits at all. So I can't really help you with yours. Never fear - Charles Duhigg’s website provides a handy flow chart for breaking bad habits, which I will share with you. 

http://duhigg-site.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/How-to-Change-a-Habit.jpg

It’s kind of complicated, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t start bad habits. Like me. Or maybe it shows that Pulitzer Prize winning Charles Duhigg is just an overthinker. He could take a lesson – we all could – from the husband. He had a nail biting habit when we met, which he revealed during the first football season we spent together. And by “together” I mean in different rooms after I saw how het up he got and that he bit his nails. Then one day, under absolutely no pressure from me, he quit. He said, “I am going to stop biting my nails.” And then he did. Without a flow chart.

*

But wait, I wrote that stuff yesterday before driving the ballet carpool. Since then, I realized that I do have a bad habit. It is this. Every time I get out of my car, I pull the car keys out of the ignition with my right hand, then grab my bag and haul it towards me, and every time I do that I jab my hand towards my face with my key sticking out. Then I think, If I don’t stop grabbing the key that way, I am going to stick myself in the eye one of these days.

Reinactment

Okay, maybe there is another habit I could work on breaking. My habit of anxiety. You didn’t realize I had anxiety, you say? Well, I know it’s not obvious; but trust me, I suffer from anxiety - just a touch.  

Just the other day, my sister the psychoanalyst mentioned attending a talk at my niece and nephew’s school by some guy who described a technique for relieving anxiety involving a tennis ball and your own two hands. It’s called Mind Juggling. I share it with you, Readers, in case any of you want to try it. If so, please let me know. As I told my sister the psychoanalyst, the idea of banishing my anxiety and resetting my brain makes me nervous. But I probably should work on that, because otherwise how will I be able to focus on the car key thing? And if I don’t, somebody’s going to get her eye poked out, and that somebody is going to be me. Then I’ll really have a problem.

12 Things I Did Instead of Write a Blog Post

I’m in one of those phases when I feel like a chicken trying to fly.  I can do it, but my flight is ungainly, bottom heavy, and awful low to the ground. I’m not a 5’8” leggy ectomorphic, um, eagle – I am a chicken. A chicken that doesn’t seem to get very far.  When I feel like a chicken, I have learned to take stock of what I’ve been doing. Take stock, I said, Readers, not make stock.

So. Here’s a baker's dozen things I did instead of writing a blog post this week.

1. Read a lot of essays by E. B. White.
2. Decided my blog needs video.
3. Went out to lunch with two great friends and discussed my worries about my children.
4. Noticed how weird and fake I sound on video, and that I purse my lips most schoolmarmlike.
5. Deleted many, many videos of myself talking about success.
6. Decided I need collagen in my schoolmarmlike lips.
7. Bought a crazy wrap that can be a dress, a skirt, a vest, a cape – but will not make me a 5’8” leggy ectomorph.
8. Obsessed over my vast expanse of forehead.
9. Had a complementary consultation with a decorator from Calico Corners.
10. Had delicious corn chowder with a friend and discussed our worries about our children.
11. Listened to a terrific interview with Billy Jean King and drafted a post about it.
12. Queried an agent with a book proposal.
13. Attempted to pick a fight with the husband, who would have none of it.

Whose Screw is Loose?

Is it mine?

Last week I had this piece in the New York Times Motherlode blog. It ran in tandem with KJ Dell’Antonia’s response to it. In case you missed them, they are about how my daughter's course selections for next year triggered my anxiety about how much to push for prestigious colleges and KJ's lack of anxiety about it and her heartwarming belief in passion and hard work. Together, they are still generating comments, which is good, since there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I am told. If only I could publish my blog in the NYTimes everyday, I’d get a lot more comments on it. Of course, I would have to grow a thicker skin. Maybe just let my tendency to eczema fulfill itself…

Because some of those comments – hoo boy. Let me tell you. I’ve tried not to read too many of them, because I can only stand so much. Plus, I am suggestible, so it’s best not to pay too close attention or I might start (really) believing them.

Interestingly, every comment I saw suggested or downright declared that I had better seek help for my mental illness. Which, you know, rankles, since I’ve been doing that for years. And none of those professionals has ever told me I’m crazy. Except one, but she was joking. I am pretty sure.

Meanwhile, every comment the husband read was about how the commenter hadn't been a bit concerned one way or another about college, yet his/her child had grown up to be an exemplary human with absolutely no stress or intervention of a parental nature.

Yet my friends told me they thought the comments were overall kind of in agreement with me.

Go figure. We find what we are looking for, I guess.

*

I thought, Readers, you might be interested in a few background details about the posts.

First of all, Gym Mom immediately identified herself. Not to worry. We are still on excellent terms. In fact, she emailed that she was “excited and proud" to make her debut in the Times. So all is well there. And you can see she has an excellent sense of humor.

I, too, have retained mine, despite glancing at one too many exhortations to let my kid eat lunch already. Far too many commenters use as evidence of my mental illness and my terrible mothering the “fact” that I am “making” the 9th grader skip lunch. Hello? She took lunch this year, her first year in high school, because I/we insisted. She has put her foot down about next year. None of her friends take lunch, so why should I force her to if she doesn’t want to? Eventually, one HT from Ohio wrote in explaining why she avoided lunch all through high school: "my high school cafeteria was like something out of The Lord of The Flies, and anyone who could avoid it, did." Of her cafeteria experience, the 9^th grader says, simply, that it's full of “drama.” 

Furthermore, since we live in a town that has its school schedule organized for the benefit of the all-important athletic teams that “need” to practice in the afternoons, high school starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 2:07 p.m., and not at the time that would most fit with adolescent development and support academic achievement. (Do NOT get me started on that.) The point is, the 9^th grader can have lunch slash snack when she gets home.

By the way, many of these kids take that extra period and use it for art or music, because they’re only allotted time in a regular schedule for one or the other, and this way they can take both. So it’s not as if it’s only the Type A tiger cubs who drop lunch.

Second of all, almost better than having something published was emailing with KJ Dell’Antonia about publishing it. After she accepted my initial essay, I decided I wanted to rewrite it, making it less flippant and self-deprecating, which doesn’t play well when Motherlode readers are ready with their comment-trigger-fingers. Subtlety doesn’t really work, as I’ve found on both occasions I’ve published in Motherlode. In fact, half the readers don’t even finish the piece, which I could tell this time, because they criticize me for being too invested, when I concluded by letting the 9^th grader make her own decision about her extra class. Yes, that little factoid eluded most readers. KJ told me she hashed out her response with her husband, who comes down a little closer to my side than she, and then it was a go. Still, she worried that she was “letting me out to hang,” because my piece was going to offend people who didn’t have ways or means of getting their children into top colleges. I could see that my piece hinged on my emotional conflict, while hers was a reasoned, logical argument, and therefore I would be blasted by people who didn't read the subtext, but I told her it was fine. I am all about conflict. So I put my head on the block and wham!

I am still here.

I Regret Nothing - With Name-Dropping

Product of Good Parenting

I recently passed a diverting lunchtime with a writer friend revisiting some of the opportunities we failed to grab, back in our twenties. Turns out we have a couple of doozies. For example, I offer my tour of the The New Yorker, about 20 years ago. Through a connection I can no longer recall - something to do with his mother - Louis Menand gave me a tour of The New Yorker. Yes, that Louis Menand, who writes regularly for the magazine. He gave me a tour. Through the offices. Of The New Yorker. 

What was it like, The New Yorker? What was Louis Menand like? I hardly know. I doubt I had a better notion then. It’s as if I were led, blindfolded, on that tour. I have one memory, a glimpse into a small office space. It was empty, but showed signs of occupancy. Which famous writer worker there? I don’t have the faintest idea. Maybe it was a plebe’s office. Who the heck knows? As for Louis Menand – I have only the recollection of the sensation of being with a person. I wouldn’t recognize him now, and frankly, I wouldn’t have recognized him a week after that tour. I don’t know that I ever looked him in the face. He was with me – beside, ahead, behind? – the way any authority figure was throughout my childhood, a shape or a bulk of anonymous but indisputable existence with which I could expect no real interaction. Like a coat rack draped in an overcoat. Certainly not like person with whom I could (ought to) communicate as an equal.

Looking back, I see the whole thing as a failure of imagination, not of courage. I wasn’t nervous. I was simply unable to consider my proximity to Louis Menand and that tour as opportunities for career advancement.  It’s possible I stood on a point of honor: I didn’t want to be like everyone else he toured around The New Yorker on his mother’s request and then ASK something of him, career-related. It’s possible. And stupid. More likely, though, my muteness sprang from seeing him as an authority figure, and seeing myself – or not seeing myself at all.

So why was he an authority figure? And why was I – a child?

This where I indulge in a little parent bashing. I don’t really like to do it, because, now that I am one, I understand that parents are mere humans, full of insecurities and fatal flaws that can obscure our good intentions. Nevertheless, I have to say that some responsibility for the stupid lack of imagination I showed then lay with my parents. For who else but they were supposed to teach me how to see my possibilities? I came across this bit by none other than Martha Stewart, in which she says the best thing anyone ever taught her was that she could do anything she put her mind to – and the person who taught her that? Her dad. She says, “I think it really often is up to the parents to help build confidence in their children. It is a very necessary part of growing up.”* (Then she applies another layer of decoupage to the birdcage she's making out of strips of six thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for her gazebo.)  

Now, Martha's run the gamut from model to mogul to jailbird and back. Whatever you may fault her for, you can't fault her for lack of imagination for where she could be and what she could do.

It never even occurred to me that my tour with Louis Menand could be anything other than that, a tour. I never for an instant considered myself equal to anyone working there. Even though there were people my age, people from my high school class, working there around that time, I just felt different from Those People. They were on some other existential plane. So that’s the bottom line.

I left Louis Menand and The New Yorker, and I returned to my stultifying data entry job and my novel in progress, and never followed up. If Louis Menand noticed I didn’t write him a thank-you note, I hope he didn’t tell his mother. It never occurred to me, not because I was rude. I wasn’t. I was raised to write thank-yous. I had a supply of cards with my name printed on them for this purpose. No, I didn’t think of writing him because I didn’t imagine I had registered on his brain. He was one of Those People. 

So, my point, Readers, is that it’s necessary to imagine yourself using your talents and skills for work you want to do, and it’s important to help others imagine these things for themselves. Not unrealistic things. Realistic things. Who’s to say what’s unrealistic? That’s where imagination kicks in – imagining seemingly out-of-reach places reachable. Like taking advantage of an in at The New Yorker to explore how you might fit there. If it’s too late for you, then do it for your kids, or for your niece. Do it for your mentees. You might help shape the next Martha Stewart – or, if that gives you the heebie-jeebies, the next Louis Menand. You want people to believe you could be a contendah, and you gotta do that for them, too.

My friend has a doozie of a regret story. It also involves The New Yorker. I won’t tell it here, because it’s her doozie. I’ll just say it might beat mine.

*Martha on the best advice she ever received (in LinkedIn)

The Practice Perspective--Practice Perspective

Today is Yom Kippur. I went to services last night, because I’m a High Holidays Jew, which means I go to the synagogue twice a year, at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which in case you are wondering, are the most important Jewish holidays. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, which, in case you're wondering, in the Hebrew calender, is 5773 this year. Rosh Hashanah kicks off ten Days of Awe that wrap up with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Also, in case you’re wondering, Jewish holidays start the evening before they appear on the regular calendar. Something to do with Genesis saying, “It was evening and it was morning,” in the description of the creation of the earth, not "It was morning and it was evening." On Yom Kippur you’re supposed to fast from the time you go to services in the evening until sundown the next day. You’re supposed to spend that whole day in services, and then have a large meal and possibly a party, called the break fast.

Only I started this blog post at 10 a.m., and I’d already eaten some piecrust. And I don’t even like pie, really, except for strawberry rubarb. In general, I feel that sweet calories that don’t contain chocolate are a waste. And I’m in my pajamas, not at temple. So that’s the kind of Jew I am. 

The Successful Transvestite

Stephen Burt, Green Acres Alumnus

Here’s something I can’t get out of my head. It's a news item about motivational speaker/success guru/ positive-thinking proponent Tony Robbins. You've probably heard of him. As part of one of his motivational retreats he took people fire-walking. Fire-walking involves burning coals and bare feet. It is one of those extreme sports formerly undertaken only by shamans and other wise men. Now it’s an activity undertaken by anyone who pays Tony Robbins. Seventeen of the participants on the retreat ended up in the hospital with severe burns. I suppose the fire walking was the grand finale, meant to show them how much confidence they’d gained—see, I can walk on fire, Ma!  So, oops.

I am sorry to say that I did laugh when I read this little news item. Why am I telling you this? Not just because I have a compulsion to confess my foibles to everyone, even to strangers, probably in some twisted unconscious attempt to fend off any criticisms that I might think at all well of myself, and thus be asking for a sledgehammer from on high to crush me, but also because. Well, I just don’t know.

I learned something about fire-walking, however. It is that the fire from coals isn’t as hot as the fire from other burning things, so learning to walk across them is in fact possible for anyone. You just have to do it really fast. Obviously, psyching yourself up to do it is part of the message Tony Robbins teaches. You have to build up courage and self-confidence. But you also have to know the trick. 

‘Course sometimes you still get burned.

I'm Doing What I Want, but Where is the Money?

This week, I was supposed to go to Boston for a job training, but it was cancelled. Saved me six hours round trip in the car, but it bummed me out. I was all packed, checked my email one last time, and there was the message. "Client's needs changed," whatever. Yadda yadda. Lucky I checked.

Everything happens for a reason, passed through my brain.

Um, yeah.

I thought it was funny that phrase passed through my brain, since I'm not one of your crunchy-airy-believing-in-signs kind of people, much as I would like to be. Yes, really, I would. Life seems so much more thrilling, or at least meaningful, to people who believe that way.

I observed the phrase flitting through my mind--result of lots of mindfulness meditation practice, ability to notice these passing thoughts with dispassion. I also observed the retort that followed along right after. Yeah, everything happens for a reason, but it just so happens that the reason has nothing to do with you.

Then I recalled the 3 queries I recently sent to agents for a project and the 3 rejections that came sailing back to me, practically instantaneously. After that, I lay down for two days and read Broken Harbor by Tana French. I also decided the husband was annoying, I am fat, and the world is grey.

Today I'd had enough wallowing. I ran. I showered. I opened up Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow, by Marsha Sinetar.  Heard of that book? That old chestnut? I've been joking about that title for years. Decades, even."I'm doing what I love, but if the money's following, it's sure a long way behind"...and so on. It was published in 1987, just when I decided not to go to law school and to work for a phone sex company instead.  Excellent decision.

I opened at random to a section about three aspects to the "the money will follow" part of the title: letting go; waiting; and inner wealth.  The specific part I put my finger on was this: "in the critical months and years of 'waiting' for the money to follow, the person who ventures into the loved, not-yet-successful work area faces the risk that not only will the money be delayed, but also that he will feel he has experienced a failure.... This is, in the final analysis, a very personal judgement call, and no book can give the formula for when to stay or quit."

Aw, hell.  Why not? That's why I'm reading this book. I want the freakin' formula.

Sinetar continues on the next page, "We must become good readers of our own situation."

Isn't that just like every single self-help book you've ever read? They fob off the really hard work, usually the problem that has brought you to buy this book, by telling you it's up to you to figure out the nubbin at the core of the situation. I mean, if I could read my situation well, lady, I wouldn't need your book.

So I ask you, readers, how do I read my situation? The potential job fell through, which is perhaps a sign that I ought to commit myself to my creative pursuits more confidently and thoroughly. However, I am three for three with those agent queries, which suggests that I ought to conduct a much more thorough job search than I've done so far, and leave my creative pursuits behind.

Perhaps it's time to pull out the I Ching....Or can someone just give me the name of a decent psychic?