life is attention
In Constructive Living, there is a saying: “Life is attention.” Basically, your life is made up of whatever you chose to give your attention. When you give something your attention, whether it’s your child or your neuroses or your favorite tv show, you are effectively giving your life to that thing.
As of right now, I am done with giving my life to a problem I do not have the power to resolve.
i don’t know where i’m going, but i sure know where i’ve been
In the course of my work today, I actually was required to read the following prayer for proofreading purposes. As it absolutely accurately captured where I am right now, I thought I would post it. It’s a prayer by Thomas Merton:
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
breaking the fast
I did a fast this weekend, just in case anybody is interested.
It wasn’t a total fast, or a bread and water fast. Nothing but water, herbal tea, or vegetables (or low sodium V8, which is basically water and vegetables) till after sundown. And even after sundown, I tried to eat sensibly and not to excess.
Friday was pretty easy. Saturday was by far the toughest day of it, because I went with Jonna to the Fiber Festival again this year, and they had some lovely-looking desserts and cookies, and hardest of all to resist, coffee. But I was a good faster, and just went for some of Miss Jewel’s Autumn Herbal Tea. I paid for my resolve with a particularly nasty caffeine-withdrawal headache.
I officially (and unintentionally) broke the fast Sunday afternoon at my niece’s first birthday party. No cake, but I did eat two pieces of Papa John’s mushroom pizza and a small cup of soda before I remembered I was supposed to be fasting. I did at least refrain from the donuts and coffee at church.
But it was not by any means a failed effort. I think that the fast served the spiritual, physical and emotional purposes that I set out. By Sunday evening, I felt really renewed and refreshed, and got an excellent night’s sleep last night (good enough to get up earlier fairly easily.) It was well worth the literal and figurative headaches involved.
I feel more like myself than I have for a very long time. By Sunday evening, I was practically giddy while grocery shopping. Not a “brain damaged by lack of food” kind of giddiness, but a “wow, the world just seems so much brighter and clearer” sense of well-being kind of giddiness.
curiosity is seduction
I’m wincing a little bit right this moment at the thought of all the inappropriate spam comments that title is going to rain down on my poor head, but I think it’s worth it.
I ran across that provocative statement in the middle of a post on Creating Passionate Users. I know, I know-we’re tech-free now, but this article isn’t primarily about the web or other sundry geekery. It’s primarily about writing. With NaNoWriMo bearing down on me and my current position as a copywriter, I found it particularly relevant stuff.
So if you are a professional scribe, or just any person who has to write and would like people to actually read and enjoy what you write, you could either read the entire linked article above, or you could remember the much shorter and catchier summary: curiosity is seduction.
Get hold of your reader’s curiousity, intrigue them, get them asking questions, and you’ve got their attention. Bad writing runs off fewer readers than boring writing. In fact, you’re better off ticking your readers off than boring them. You’re better off confusing them a bit than boring them.
Have you seen Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong? One of the best things about that version, IMO, is that they offered for the first time, a more plausible reason for Anne’s survival than “gorillas prefer blondes.” Anne survived because she was a curiosity. I’m guessing, if you’re an 25 foot tall ape, watching even a passable vaudeville performance is more entertaining and curiosity-provoking than watching yet another virgin screaming her bloody head off.
i heart my girlfriends
I touched on this just a bit in my post about living with “idiots,” but today I feel like it’s worth its own post.
I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have “friend issues.” Either they don’t feel like they have enough friends; or they feel like they have too many to be able to give any of the relationships the time and attention they deserve. Everybody’s friendship pool seems either broad but too shallow; or deep, but not many friends wide. Most of the women I know have “burned by cattiness” trust issues with other women. Men, God love them, are usually about as skilled at going deeper in their relationships than sports and snacks as a cappuchin monkey.
Really, it’s a wonder when you manage to make a few strong, deep connections in life, so I consider myself incredibly blessed because I have quite a few, both online and in “real life.” (Which is a seriously relative term, in my case.)
I would like to take a moment to appreciate all my girlfriends, even the male ones. Out of respect for your privacy, I’m not going to name you here, but you know who you are. Without you, my life would be a dimmer, colder, grayer place.
Lastly, I would like to make a follow up to my comments on my last posting about “working moms” and “full time moms.” I don’t dislike the term “full time mom.”  I think it’s a perfectly accurate and common-sense term. I also think that “working mom” is a perfectly accurate and common-sense term. My issue is with people who demand a level of sensitivity to their feelings that they aren’t willing to reciprocate. If “working mom” is insensitive (and I don’t personally think it is, I think it’s accurate) then “full time mom” is equally insensitive. Ideally, we’d all have the sense to allow others struggling through the challenge of parenting the grace to define their own roles in whatever way makes sense to them.
While we’re on the subject, I also wanted to throw something out to any readers brave enough to comment. I’ve had several women tell me they object to the term “working mom” to describe my role. However, not one of them has ever offered an alternative term, and I’m frankly a bit tired of tripping over “mom-who-works-outside-the-home” around them.
If someone were to ask me for an alternative to “full time mom” I would say “homemaker.” To me, that’s accurate, meaningful and complimentary. If a full time mom’s mission is to make a home–to create a loving and nurturing environment for her family–then “homemaker” makes sense. “Domestic Engineer” seems a little sterile to me, but if a person likes that description for themself, more power to ya. “Full time mom” works, too (as long as you don’t spend ten minutes telling me how awful “working mom” is… 
)
But I’d really, honestly like to hear what alternatives you all could come up with for “working mom” that is respectful to everybody. Consider it a creative writing challenge, in preparation for next month’s NaNoWriMo.Â
my other life
Very often lately, I’ve found myself feeling as though I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in someone else’s life. It’s not so much that anything monumentally unusual has happened; on the contrary, life seems to be chugging right along at a very moderate pace and with a minimal amount of drama these days.
It’s actually that, now it comes down to it. I’ve just been smacked in the face with how different my everyday, ordinary weekday existence is from the one that seemed most likely when I was a kid.
I was extremely introverted. I was extremely bookish and a devoted student. I didn’t particularly like people, to be honest. Oh, I liked mankind in the general way; I just found individual people to be generally more a nuisance than interaction with them was worth. Wasn’t particularly interested in marriage, kids, or a house with a white picket fence. I loved the city and houses that had “character.”
So how exactly I ended up at 33 with a husband, two kids, a cookie-cutter ranch in rural Palmyra, I’m not exactly certain. Well, I know how it happened insofar as I know my own history. I’m less sure of the why.
I’m not regretful at all; I ended up with a life that suits me pretty well. I’m still bookish and odd; I’ve gotten over the introversion since I discovered some people like me, bookish oddness and all. I love my kids even though I’ll never be one of “those moms”–the ones who attend PTO meetings and bake cupcakes and obsess over the fact that the preschool teacher thinks Johnny’s crayon work is “immature.” I still get a little irritated at moms who bristle and blow over the term “working mom” but are completely oblivious to the fact that “full time mom” implies I’m a mere part timer. [NOTE: I think it’s perfectly fine if you like the title “full-time mom.” I just think it’s a bit unfair to do it IF you’re also going to complain, loudly, about “working mom”–yes, I know there’s no such thing as a “nonworking mom.” I also know there’s no such thing as a “part time mom.” RANT OVER.]
I love my job, although the winding path to getting here seems a bit ridiculous considering I’ve known since I was five I wanted to write for a living. I love my husband and our weird relationship. We put the “fun” in “dysfunctional.”
But lately I find myself thinking about the life I predicted; what it would be like, where I would live, and what I’d be doing with my ordinary everydays if it had been a true prediction. Not in a wistful, “if only” kind of way. Just in a “isn’t that interesting to think about?” kind of way.
What I realize more and more is that the really significant differences are the people. My imagined future was remarkably people-free. Some cats, possibly. But very few people; much like Kathleen Turner’s romance novelist from “Romancing the Stone.” Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d have liked it much, had it panned out that way.
And I will try to remind myself of this next time Madeline is screaming at hypersonic volume and demanding her daily peanut butter sandwich while I still have one foot on the stoop coming in from work.
Getting Spiritual Things Done
Two purposes to this post. First, to update our personal friends and family on the search for a new “church home.” (And I feel the need to reiterate that it’s not a negative reflection on our previous church.) We’ve attended two churches thus far: the little bitty Methodist church that is walking distance from our house, and the burgeoning mega Church on our side of the river. Verdict thus far: Itty Bitty Methodist has a nifty contemporary service and a good preacher, and is getting an Emmaus reunion group started. MegaChurch has great coffee, video games and air hockey in kids’ church. It would be tough to make other judgments about MegaChurch, because they had a guest praise team and were preaching on tithing, which is never a good sermon to use as a representative sample.
The other purpose of this post is to talk about GTD and spirituality. I had a thought: spiritual formation and GTD are alike in that it’s all about the individual, small actions. Anybody can drink massive quantities of caffeine and go on an organizational frenzy. And anybody can be struck by religious fervor and make a few grand gestures of faith. But where the real action is, is in the mundane, everyday, line items of life. Those items are teh drops of water that carve the grand canyon of your character.
Which is not to say your character is a massive hole.
I think that’s a good place to stop typing.Â
fear of falling
“Wise men say, only fools rush in; but I can’t help falling in love with you…”
I was listening to the radio the other day, and I was struck by a thought. I get struck by thoughts pretty frequently, and they usually hit me rather forcefully in the head, which accounts for the dazed expression I wear most of the time. But I digress.
I was listening to the radio, and the song “Consume Me” by dcTalk came on. It’s one of my favorites of theirs. The lyrics talk about giving yourself over to a consuming, surrendered love in beautiful, poetic, and (I think) accurate terms. I was struck by the thought that most people fear that kind of love, regardless of the object.
I’ve been talking a lot lately with my friends about the problem of “comfort Christianity.” I can’t really speak about other faiths, since that’s outside my area of experience and knowledge, but I can say pretty conclusively that Christ did not ask for or want half-hearted, part-time followers. Nor did He seem very interested in people who were following him out of a sense of duty or obligation. Christianity is a faith that is sort of predicated on that all-consuming, whole-hearted devotion to a personal God. It’s not a self-help program or a extra-curricular activity. It is, in essence, a love relationship with everything that entails.
I thought, as the lyrics washed over me, that the main source of comfort Christianity is fear. And it’s the same fear that makes people protect their hearts from falling head-over-heels, irrationally in love with anyone: fear, and lack of trust, and a desire to maintain the illusion that you control your life.
It further occurred to me that it is, after all, only an illusion of control that people cling to. I no more control what is going to happen to me than I control the tides or the sequence of stop lights. The only thing I can control is my response to what happens to me, to the people I meet, and the things they do and say. It’s like sailing (which I am abysmally bad at): at best, you’re effectively responding to the wind and moving in the overall direction you want to be going in. You can’t make the wind blow, and you certainly can’t make it blow in a particular direction.
But people cling to that illusion of control. I know more than a few people who believe they are committed Christians. But their commitment is to their own vision and their own purposes on Christ’s behalf, and that is a very different thing from being committed to Christ. It’s rather like buying your extremely active nephew a book, when he’d really rather have a scooter,
and blaming him for not appreciating the gift and growing closer to you. Well, you didn’t really bother to find out what it was he wanted from you, did you?
I can hardly point fingers, though, because I deal with fear of falling as much as anyone else, possibly more. It may not be in my relationship with my Savior where I feel the need to cling to my independence.  I know that I’m called to love others without agenda, without reservation, and without a preoccupation with self-preservation; and I fail pretty sadly at that. I can make excuses and give excellent, rational reasons for the ways that I stiff-arm people. However, none of those reasons exempts me from my command to love others as myself. Deep down I know that I hurt myself far more than I protect myself by this distancing.
Merlin Mann does CL without being aware of it.
I try to avoid posts that are pretty much just links to people smarter than me, but I think this one is worth it. Merlin Mann posted his top 5 super obvious, no-duh organization tips. I’m linking to it because it’s short, it’s useful, and it contains one really excellent, worth-pondering sentence: “You are the sole person in your life who gets to decide where your time and attention can go.”
Right there, you have the essence of constructive living. When you take responsibility for where your time and attention goes, and practice daily putting it in the most personally productive and valuable places, your neuroses will 9 times out of 10 solve themselves.
Tawk amongst yourselves.
living peaceably with idiots
It’s been an interesting week, here at the homestead. Without getting into more detail than is appropriate on a public website, I spent a large chunk of the week really, really angry with my husband.
At some point in your married life, you are going to feel like you’ve been saddled with, at best, a complete idiot, or at worst, a malicious, self-centered sociopath. This is not really an indication that you actually are living with an idiot or sociopath (although I guess that’s always possible…) Generally speaking, it’s an indication that you are a somewhat screwed up (we religious types say “fallen” or “sinful”) person living with an equally screwed up person.
It has not been a fun week. We averted catastrophe by divine intervention once again, and while it’s always encouraging to see the Divine intervening on one’s behalf, it rarely happens under circumstances that are less than extremely stressful.
I have come to realize a few things over the course of this week, and figured since I have this nifty website, I would share:
- Men seem to come in two varieties: the rough, tough, John Wayne type who takes care of business but prying an “I love you” out of him takes a crowbar; and the sweet, fun, affectionate guy who appears to have all the adult life management skills of a nine year old.
- Women who are married to the John Wayne type generally feel like coworkers with their capable but not emotive spouses, and need some occasional hearts and flowers to avoid feeling like they got gypped in the marriage department.
- Women who are married to the Robin Williams type generally feel like the lone grown-up raising an additional kid, and at a certain point, his affection begins to feel a bit like the toddler’s: another demand for your already stretched attention.
I have a most excellent online friend, whom we shall call Nikki for purposes of privacy. Nikki was married to a John Wayne. She kept asking him to love her in the way she needed: affection. He kept loving her the way he liked to: paying bills, mowing lawns, and generally managing stuff. At a certain point, she was near to exploding with frustration, and she explained it to him like this: if I was dying of thirst, and asked you for water, and you gave me a hamburger, even if it was a great hamburger, what would happen?
Her husband, who was fairly quick on the uptake in general, said “You’d die.”
So Nikki’s response was “Stop giving me hamburgers.”
I don’t think anybody who knows my husband is unclear about which type of husband he is (hint: not the John Wayne one.) But even so, I was in a similar state to my friend this week: dying of thirst, and drowning in hamburgers.
By about Wednesday, I was able to tell him what I was feeling and thinking without guilt trips, demands, or expectations. It was simply telling him “this is what’s going on with me.” Because the thing is, I’ve learned that you really can’t change another person’s behavior. I’ve tried negotiation on this particular issue repeatedly, and despite both of us being in full and enthusiastic agreement, behavior simply doesn’t change. And trying to manipulate his behavior is not healthy for me. All I can do is be honest about how his behavior affects me, and leave the rest up to him.
But a few things were very helpful in enabling a naturally very, um, emotive person like me to manage my feelings, do what needed to be done, and for the most part, relate in a healthy way to my spouse while in conflict.
- I leaned on my close friends. I had the support, encouragement, and commisseration of several good, authentic friends who let me be real and honest with them. So I didn’t feel all alone, which is the feeling that leads to despair for me.
- I leaned on God. I prayed and read the Bible a bit each day. I didn’t avoid God. I trusted Him to be big enough to handle my anger. And I kept my eyes peeled for messages of encouragement from Him (and found one, too!)
- I managed my own attention. Knowing I couldn’t deal with my anger in a productive way earlier in the week, I focused my attention on other things. My excellent new job. Reading the Harry Potter novels my sister lent me. Taking care of things that needed to be done. I didn’t dwell and simmer, so the anger became more manageable instead of less as time passed.
My last point, and I think it’s fairly important, is that the turning point in my anger was when I was able to restore my trust that my husband was both trying to love me and didn’t intend ill toward me. What made me the most angry was feeling that I was the only one trying. Once I was able to see that wasn’t the case, I could live peaceably in the house again.
Well, I hope you all have a peaceable week with your own spouses.
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