I'm sitting in an Eat Street diner called the Bad Waitress, musing about inflation. Remember the Five Dollar Milkshake in Pulp Fiction? This place has milkshakes for $5.25. (Bananas in your milkshake will set you back an additional dollar).
Waiting for my eggs Benedict. I just finished my morning swim, so I think I've earned it. It comes with asparagus. That's a vegetable. (UPDATE: Two stalks? That's a garnish, not a comes-with. Sheesh. Oh well, it was REALLY good hollandaise. I'm not going to have to eat lunch now, I'm sure of it.)
Thinking about habits and about outcomes.
What do you really want to change about yourself? I mean -- among the things that you could change. Really.
I know I have a long list. I wish I reflexively, automatically, responded to my children by strengthening connections, not rupturing them. I wish that desire for the Lord, rather than duty, would draw me to prayer several times a day. I wish that my irritation at an untidy house didn't get in the way of welcoming people into my home; I wish I was more generous to my friends. I wish I had a better grasp on how much money I spend. I wish I knew how to teach my children love for Jesus as well as I think I know how to teach them theology and logic. I wish I didn't waste any time sitting in front of the computer each day. The list goes on.
Once I would have said "I wish I wasn't so heavy and out of shape." I don't say that anymore. So: hope.
And skill. I have a theory -- still untested -- that I can apply something I learned with the heavy/out of shape thing, to all those other wishes and longings. It's the meta-advice that I do dispense to people who really mean it when they ask me, "How did you lose the weight? How can I not be so fat anymore?" And that is to let go of the outcome, as much as possible----let go of what you want to BE ---and concentrate on the relevant behavior---what you DO. Yes, I had weight loss on my mind that whole time, how could I not? But I tried to put all my mental effort, self-blame and self-praise, onto the habits of regular exercise and control of my eating. I tried to want those things for themselves. And as time went on I did want those things for themselves. That has made the difference. I am now the sort of person who wants to wait for a nibble till lunch. I am now the sort of person who looks forward to a vigorous swim.
This is the insight I would like most to share with people who ask me how I did it, how to do it. A lot of the answers are "I don't know." I simply don't know why last year and not any of the 20 years before that. I don't know what changed. Some grace, I think, an answered prayer, but I would never want to suggest that your problem is that you haven't prayed the right prayer or prayed hard enough. But I do sincerely believe that cultivating the desire for new behaviors -- not slavishly adhering to behaviors because I thought they would gain me my far-off desire -- was a truly new, truly different, ultimately successful strategy.
It's sort of like "fake it till you make it." I tried to behave like a healthy, athletic person, and to want to do the things a healthy, athletic person would do, rather than just wish I were healthy and athletic and hope that this wish would drive me to do the right things.
I've wondered in this space before if it is possible to MAKE yourself want something. The more I think about it, the more I think the answer is yes. Some things are probably harder to want than others. But why not try?
Can I apply this to the other things I would like to change about myself? Probably not all at once, but I could pick one thing and work on it. Take my response to the children. I cannot make myself be patient and self-giving. I can resolve to change behaviors, and I can really want to change them. Here is an example, a tiny one. I have an image in my mind of myself that I do not like. It comes from a day when my five-year-old got a hold of the camera and walked around the house taking pictures -- you know the kind, all the furniture slightly distorted from the kid's-eye view. There are several pictures of me in that set. They are all pictures of my back, hunched over the computer. I do not want my kids to think of me as focused on the computer. In the picture, it is impossible to tell whether I am reading blogs, or writing email to good friends, or planning the school day. The kids don't see this. All they see is my back to them. I know I do not want to spend their lives with my back to them and my face turned to the computer screen. If I concentrate on this image, I think I can make myself feel dissatisfied with looking at the screen instead of them. I think I can make myself want to save the computer time for the blocks I have set aside for it, for early mornings, for the after-lunch recess, for daddy's bedtime story time, for Saturday mornings at the coffee shop. I think I can make myself want to turn it off when the first child comes stumbling and yawning down the stairs wanting breakfast, so that the first thing he sees is a smile and a good morning, not "Aaagh! What are you doing up already!?"
"I will be more connected" -- overwhelming, open-ended, vague. "I will learn to keep the computer in its place --" much more do-able. And more immediate, too. At the end of the day I can feel good about having turned it off when I was supposed to and saved it for the right time, even if I don't feel any more patient or connected or different in any way than yesterday. And the next day is another day. And then there is another, a string of opportunities for success as long as life lasts.
I attempt to be a weekend Luddite and not turn on the computer during what is my biggest block of family time (when not on maternity leave). I have made it known at work that I don't work on weekends. Simple, declarative sentence with no qualifiers, and I got no push back. Just because my work is portable to anyplace with a power port doesn't mean that it should be.
Posted by: Christy P | 04 July 2009 at 02:36 PM
They are all pictures of my back, hunched over the computer. I do not want my kids to think of me as focused on the computer.
Ouch! You got me on that one!
Posted by: Kelly | 04 July 2009 at 08:22 PM
I really had a wake up call on this issue last year when my mom (and her brand new laptop) came to stay with us right after my son was born. I realized that her distracted replies and mumbled, "oh, just let me finish this and then I'll do X" were a picture of me. This really hit home and solidified my somewhat shaky desire to do something about my computer use and to be more present with my kids during the day.
The thing I've struggled with over the last year though is trying to figure out when it is ok to use the computer - because it isn't a bad thing overall, of course, but it so easy to misuse. Right now I end up stealing moments when the kids are playing happily and once or twice a week staying up too late in order to catch up on email, do finances, plan school stuff, and check a few blogs. Bt then I'm tired and grumpy the next day, which isn't such a good thing! I end up feeling guilty for all of it, because it isn't particularly well planned and it doesn't flow well with the rest of my life. I need a couple times where it is ok to be on the computer, and I haven't figured out how to make that work yet. That's really great that you have those times blocked out already - I think that's a very good step in managing the compute
Posted by: Amber | 07 July 2009 at 11:50 PM