Spoiled Only Child

A slave to time

Last night I tried out a meditation group that meets at a church near my home, and the leader read to us from a book by Thich Nhat Hanh in which he talks about “signlessness.” This is one of the states that, from a mindful perspective, leads us out of suffering. A sign, in this context, is the physical form that something takes. But that form, whether it’s a table, a rock or a human body, is just a sort of container. At its essence, every container is filled with the same thing. Every single thing in the universe, human or animal, living or inanimate, natural or manmade, is composed of the same basic energy, housed in the microscopic containers of cells and atoms. In this way we are all just signs, manifestations of one infinite life force.

Wow, this is getting deep. But the state of signlessless is when you are able to see these signs for what they are: temporary manifestations of that central energy, inextricably connected and made up of the same things. You no longer labor under the delusion that the signs are all there is. This is starting to sound religious, but this basic truth is what every religion is based on. This is not a set of beliefs, it is indisputable truth--it can even be proven by science, people!

Anyway ... getting back on track. What occurred to me was that there is one sign that rules my life. Time. At first, I wasn’t sure time was a sign, since it is not a tangible thing. But the more I think about it, time is a construct, something that can be measured. It is a manmade tool that we use to try and understand the infinite. It exists only in our minds, because the absolute reality is, the only time that exists is this very moment. Flowers, animals, everyone except human beings knows this instinctively. And if we take the manmade version of time for the absolute truth, we are deluded. I say all this, and yet I am time’s slave.

Every day, more so now than ever, I run around trying to cross off items on my ever-growing to-do list. In the background, there is always fear. Fear that I will run out of time,  that I won’t get it all done. Even with so-called leisure activities, I feel a pressure to pack it in, to race against the clock, to have ALL the fun. I feel this obsession with time most fiercely at night, when I am struggling to sleep. I try not to look at clocks, and yet, again and again, my mind goes back to the question of how many hours are left. Of how tired I will be tomorrow if I only get 5 hours of sleep. Of whether I can make the magical 7-hour cutoff that allows me to function without even a slight haze of fatigue. The more I think along these lines, the more my heart races. I calm down only when I am able to move into the space of thinking about this moment, of remembering that right now, I have all the time in the world--and the only thing I can change is what I do in this instant.

I wish I were writing this post because I have developed a solution for escaping this cruel master. But the first step on the path is recognizing your obstacles. And that’s where I am right now.

 

Nothing to say

Seems I am falling off the wagon with my resolution to post more. The truth is, I just don't feel like I have anything to say. My life is pretty repetitive. Same routines, same interests, same problems, week in and week out. Here is a recap. Want to meditate but can't seem to make myself do it. Chores. Stress about all the chores I never get done. Walk dog. Stressed about work. Need new job, but not doing much about it. Play with kid. Force kid to do homework. Love kid. Annoyed by kid. Walk dog. Cook dinner. Dishes. Read a good book. Never get around to blogging about it. Have an amazing idea for how to revolutionize my life. Forget it, or never bother to do it. Walk dog. Watch Netflix. Go t0 bed. Have trouble sleeping, or not. Repeat.

Not sure where in there to insert: Write great American novel, or even: Write fascinating blog posts. It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my life. Most days, it's a fine life. I really think I'm OK with being just an average person who does her best and tries to be kind to others and make moral choices. Isn't that enough? Maybe.

I don't know where this is going. I'm writing a post about the fact that I have nothing to write about. Don't think this is helping. Will put this post out of its misery now.

A day in the life

This was written two days ago. Feeling better now, but will share anyway...

Here's how things feel right now.

I wake up with a feeling of dread about everything I need to get done.

I get Mia to school, and then spend the next six hours wrestling with the many fears and stresses that surround my work. This wrestling takes up all my time, and means that I get precious little actual work done, which makes me hate myself. I end up walking to school to pick up Mia with all the things I didn't get done swirling in my head.

I pick her up and immediately a feeling of heaviness descends upon me. I love her and she is in a sweet and enthusiastic stage right now. But still, being with her is work. On the five minute walk home, she peppers me with requests. Can she have candy? Can we do an art project? Can we go to a museum? Can we go swimming? The heaviness increases.

Every day, I have to coach her through homework and piano practice, and every day she resists it and needs to be reminded of the same things over and over and over. I get frustrated and pissy, which isn't helping.

When we're finally done, we usually do some activity or another. Whatever we do, I'm usually feeling rushed and stressed about the many things that still need to get done that night, and the ever-increasing mess in the house. I cajole her into going with me to walk the dog. I make dinner. I sit down to eat for maybe 10, 15 minutes and get asked to get up (to get her milk, to get her dessert, to get more this or that or the other thing) maybe two or three times.

By the end of the night, I hear myself talking to her and cringe. I'm constantly ordering her from here to there, telling her we need to hurry up, complaining about her messes.

I don't want to be that mom who bitches and moans about the mess each activity will make. But at the same time, her messes are immense and never-ending, and she is horrible at cleaning them up. And I am out of time and energy and patience for cleaning them all up for her. Our house threatens, every minute, to tip from "cluttered" to "squalor."

And then, before I know it, it's time to coach her through shower and teeth brushing and stories, and deal with 10 or 12 more requests for random things and her myriad delaying tactics.
And then she is finally in bed, and I have a bunch of messes to clean up.

This isn't an accurate picture. For at least part of this time, Mr. SOC is here to help. Sometimes we do fun things, we laugh or dance or take a leisurely trip to the park or go out to eat.

But what remains constant is the requests, the messes, the intense coaching needed to get her through the most routine activities. And I don't know if it's my emotional state, my stress over my job bleeding into my family life, or just that kids are a pain in the ass, but it wears me down. And some days, like today, it defeats me.

Creating a new habit

I wish I could adequately describe the feeling I get each morning when Mia is safely dropped off at school and I'm alone in the house, the point when I'm supposed to start my work day. Somehow everything that seemed so urgent when I ran out of time yesterday afternoon feels nebulous and far away. I tell myself I'm going to get started early today, but instead I open the computer and check Facebook, email, a few blogs. I'll just chill out for a few minutes while I drink my last cup of coffee, I tell myself. But the truth is, I don't want to face my work and all that it entails. Just a couple minutes longer, I think as I finish the coffee, and the next thing I know an hour has passed, maybe two. If too much time goes by, the tone for the day is set: unproductive, sluggish, unhappy.

My multipart new year's resolution about computer use has been a total flop. I knew when I made it that I was breaking all the rules of habit change, but I somehow imagined I would summon the willpower that other people couldn't. Turns out I'm just like everyone else, ready to slide back into old habits over and over again, no matter how bad they make me feel. So, it's time for a new plan.

I've been hearing a lot about how habits work lately, both at Zen Habits and now from a New York Times writer who has a new book about how most of our behavior is ruled by unconscious habits. This writer describes the process that happens in our brain. First there is the trigger, then there is the habitual behavior, and then there is the reward the behavior gives you (however fleeting). The idea is that if you identify the trigger and the reward, you can develop a new habit that will get you the same reward. Everyone seems to say that we should try to change only one habit at a time, so I'm going to focus on my computer procrastination at the beginning of my workday.

The trigger: Opening my computer at the beginning of the day

The habitual behavior: Wasting hours procrastinating on the internet

The reward: Putting off something I fear

This is a tough one, because the reward is problematic. I'd like to be able to face that fear and do my work anyway. But for now, maybe I could structure my "putting off" time in a way that it isn't so soul-sucking and demoralizing, and that it doesn't end up eating up multiple hours a day. I'm going to allot one hour every morning for non-work activities. That feels really hard, because I start every day with the fantasy that, today, for once, I'm going to get started early, goddammit! But all this fantasy does is push me into the same old trap again and again. The reality is that if I get to work exactly one hour after dropping Mia off for school, it will be a significant improvement. And if I actually schedule this hour into my day, it will no longer be a source of guilt and shame that infects my whole day.

I'm still not sure the best way to manage that hour. I'm thinking it should involve using the computer, without the pressure to do any work. Otherwise, I'm just delaying the trigger by an hour, and I'll still have to face that first opening of the laptop at the beginning of my workday. So the plan is that during that hour, I'm allowed to spend about half the time doing non-work related stuff on the computer. I'd also like to use the time to eat breakfast, meditate, listen to music, make calls to family, straighten up the house, cook, walk the dog, etc.

And then, after one hour, it's time to get started. That's still going to be a hard time for me, but on days when it feels impossible, I'm going to ask myself to work for just five minutes before doing anything else. Just five minutes. Because it's just looking at the work for the first time that's often the hardest, and if I can get over that hurdle, I just might make it. Don't know if this will work, but I'm going to try. And right now, my hour is up...

With every mistake we must surely be learning

I'm still here. For a while there, I thought I was going to fade away into a grayish blob sitting in front of the computer, and that eventually Mr. SOC would have to move me into a corner and start using me as an end table or something. But somehow, I keep getting up every day and my arms and legs still work and I have the chance to try again. And every once in a while, I even remember that my tiny little drama is not all that serious—and that maybe I don't have to make such a big fucking deal about it.

I was going to write a post here about the tragedy of all the time I've wasted procrastinating and hating myself for it. How, if I had put all that time to good use, I could have earned an advanced degree or written a series of novels or built a wind-powered turbine or something. But what good does it do to think about that? None of us are machines. And all those wretched hours have taught me something about compassion, for myself and others, and reminded me that I'm not really in control of anything. Would I rather have spent that time learning some other kind of lesson? Hell, yes. But, as much as I'd like to think otherwise, that's not really my choice.

While my waking hours have been a bit of a struggle these past couple months, one part of my life is going fairly smoothly. Sleeping. (I know, I just jinxed it.) But I've been thinking about why I've been able to sleep lately, and I think it's a lesson that could apply to all parts of my life. I remember all the months and years that I felt like everything on earth hinged on whether I could fall asleep at night. If I didn't sleep, it was evidence that I was mentally ill, that my whole life was in a downward spiral, that I had a permanent unsolvable problem, that my marriage was on the skids, that I had no control over my own life. Now, I just take it one night at a time. If I have trouble sleeping tonight, all it means is that I don't sleep tonight. It doesn't mean that I won't sleep tomorrow night, or next week, or five years from now. It doesn't mean that I might as well just end it now because the rest of my life is going to be nothing but one long sleepless hell. I'm able to take the whole thing a little more lightly. It's just one night where I lie in my safe, comfortable guest room and read for a couple extra hours, nothing more. I'm also able to maintain a bit more perspective now. Even if I can't sleep, I still have things that millions of people around the globe would kill for: a safe, quiet place to lie down at night, a comfortable bed with warm blankets, a healthy child asleep in the next room, to name just a few. Now, I can remember to be grateful for those things, whether I fall asleep easily or not.

So while sometimes it feels like I can't stop slipping into the same unproductive patterns over and over, I really am learning something on this frustrating journey.

Stuck

So, I am officially the most boring person on earth. Every day, Mr. SOC goes to work, Mia goes to school and I am left here alone. I have six and a half hours stretching out before me, and the possibilities are endless. There is so much I could get done in that time. But I do none of it. I just sit here, moldering, alone, staring at the computer. All my new year's "aspirations" about spending less time on the computer are shot to hell. There is absolutely nothing happening with work right now, and it makes me fear that I'm going to fail completely. I can't even do the most basic tasks, because the fear stops me from even getting started.

I have so much good in my life. But I feel completely empty right now. I want to write. I want to keep my promise of showing up here, because I know it's not good for me when I go into these periods of dullness and inertia. But I have nothing to say. I don't know why I can't move from this spot but, for the moment, I am stuck.

Let them drink beer!

Several months ago, Mr. SOC and I were riding in the car, chatting idly. He happened to mention that he had been behind someone at the grocery store who was buying a carton of cigarettes. He was in shock at the price, something like $40. We did the math, and if you smoke a pack a day, that's $120 a month. How awful to have such an expensive addiction, we thought, clucking our tongues and feeling superior. And then I did a few calculations in my head and said, "You know, we spend more than that on beer." [Insert ominous sound here.]

Both of us enjoy drinking two beers every night. One before dinner, a lovely way to officially announce to ourselves that the workday is over and the evening has begun, and one around 9 p.m., to celebrate that the chores are done, the kid is in bed and we can relax. I have long since gotten over worrying that this makes us alcoholics. We both skip the early beer once a week to go to the Y, and if for some reason we are unable to have a beer one evening (very, very rare), we get antsy but don't go into convulsions or anything. If we are alcoholics, our addiction is no more damaging to our lives than an addiction to caffiene or diet soda. But I have worried for years about the money that we spend on beer.

Neither of us likes cheap American beer, so our habit costs us about $150 per month. That is a lot of money. That is money we could be saving for Mia's college education, putting into our retirement fund or using to take all the fabulous vacations we feel we can't afford. So, after our car conversation, I suggested that we do a trial. We go down to one beer a night on weeknights. I did the math, and this would save us about $40 a month. I promised Mr. SOC that if we felt it was ruining our lives, we would give it up. We would just try.

Well, last night the trial period officially ended. I called it off. I don't want to live without my two beers. After months, the craving never lessened. So every night went one of two ways: drink the beer and feel guilty about it, or not drink the beer and pine for it and, often, compensate by eating desserts, drinking tea, etc. (probably canceling out at least half of the money savings). Last night, I finally realized I could get out of this cycle of guilt and craving for $40 a month. It sounded like a pretty good deal to me.

So today I declare that I am giving up guilt over my beer consumption. For years, it has been a niggling thing in the back of my mind, and life is too short to spend flogging yourself about something so insignificant. Yes, there are lots of loftier uses for that $150 a month, but I have to live my life every day, and I want to enjoy it. We both work and are responsible with money. We have no credit card debt, no car payments, no online shopping habits. (Yes, we have a sailboat. Shut up!) We don't have cable. We have the cheapest, crappiest cell phones imaginable, and the paltry few electronic gadgets we own are all hand-me-downs from my gadget-adicted mother. We buy very few new clothes, we scrimp on eating out and, now that we are mostly vegetarian, we eat beans, pasta and eggs rather than steaks. So let us have our beer, dammit! We deserve it.

I can't tell you how good this feels.

Random notes on nothing

I went to my first "dharma talk" at the Buddhist center on Sunday. It was weird. There was chanting and bowing and I'm not sure what to think about it all. But the guy (lama? monk?) said something that stuck. He said there are three stages in the spiritual journey. In the first, you are walking down the street and there is a giant hole. You aren't paying attention, you never see it and you fall in. In the second, you see the hole, but you fall in anyway. And in the third, you learn to walk around the hole. I am firmly, squarely in stage two. I should celebrate this as a victory. Instead, I'm just pissed off that I'm in this damned hole again.

Yesterday, I came up with a plan for tempering my urge to break all my internet rules. Every time I get the urge, I am to take three conscious breaths and then decide whether to follow the urge. It's amazingly effective, when I can actually do it. Have failed to do it many times in the past 24 hours.

I've been sleeping great recently. No meds, no herbs, no nothing. It's wonderful. I know this period will not last forever, but it helps to remember that my body actually is capable of falling asleep naturally. One thing that helps is that every night, I lie down in bed and consciously think about how grateful I am for my soft bed, my warm blankets, my cotton sheets, my quiet, dark room, my safe neighborhood and my relatively stable country. I think about people who lie down every night without these luxuries and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

What do you do when you have friends who make you feel used and dead inside? But then, every time you decide you are finished with them, they offer you something that is just irresistible, and you accept. And then you are indebted to them again. And then the cycle continues. Just accept that you are more business partners exchanging child care and not friends? Or listen to your gut telling you that this isn't a healthy relationship for you?

For the rest of today, I am to be like a piece of dandelion fluff. Just floating along, not invested in anything, going with the flow. What kind of small talk does dandelion fluff make?

P.S. I feel bad for Demi Moore. Life ain't easy, even when you're famous.

 

Finding my way out of wretchedness

This month seems to be moving extremely ... S L O W. Work is slow, and my days seem to stretch out forever. This respite from busy, busy, busy should be a relief. It should be a time to catch up, to revel in taking time to read a novel or meditate, to exercise more, work on project declutter and catch up on all that work stuff that remains perpetually at the bottom of the to do list. And I probably have done most of that stuff (all except catching up on work), but what is most noticeable about this expanse of free time is a feeling of discomfort and fear. I'm afraid that I'm not doing enough, not using my time wisely, not proving myself necessary. The fear makes me unable to start anything. And, as always, my coping mechanism is to avoid it all by sitting immobile in front of the computer and becoming progressively more dead inside.

But the best, the absolute best, feeling is when I start to get that glimmer of hope that this period of paralysis is coming to an end. And today, just now, I got that glimmer. I had a phone conversation with a mentor, and I didn't think it would help, but it was on the calendar and I did it out of obligation. And suddenly I saw the possibilities and the concrete steps I could take to make them happen. They say you need periods of both wretchedness and inspiration. The wretchedness softens you up, makes you compassionate. Well, let's just hope that I've gotten my wretchedness out of the way for a while, because I am more than ready for some inspiration.

Following the letter, but not the spirit, of the law

It turns out there are plenty of ways to waste time on the computer, even within the confines of my rules. I have been (mostly) obeying them, but I still seem to end up in the same cycle every day. I waste the first hour, maybe hour and a half, of my work day screwing around on the computer. Then I end up rushing like a crazy person at the end of the day, literally working until 4 minutes before I am supposed to be at school to pick up Mia. And then I'm thinking, why did I waste that hour this morning???

The urge to avoid starting my work — and all the pressures and questions about the future that come with it — is just so strong. Work feels hard and a little bit scary. So I tell myself I'll just relax for a bit while I drink my coffee, do my daily Facebook and blog check, read a little email. The next thing I know, I'm bleary-eyed and guilty and an hour has passed, and then it's time to take the dog out again and I still haven't started my work. I may only check FB once a day, but I can spend a half hour there, watching people's meaningless videos and clicking their links. The other day, when I had to edit a piece of writing that I've been working on forever, I spent hours reading the archives of my own blog. No rules about that, right?

But all hope is not lost. As Mr. Zen Habits would say, being aware of what I'm doing is the first and most important step to making positive change. And I am fully aware. I'm just going to keep trying, tweaking my rules when necessary, and forgiving myself when I don't measure up to my expectations. I think it might not be possible for me just to jump headlong into work each morning, and I can accept that. But I'd like to work toward using the time I spend procrastinating in more positive ways. Writing, cooking, doing yoga--whatever. That's why I'm here this morning, forcing myself to write this before I dip into Facebook.