A major change I’d like to focus on this year is cutting down on the noise. It’s really difficult for me. I like to be involved in the various stories and discussions going on (if mostly as a lurker), and I like having multiple sources of news. I like listening to podcasts, and reading blogs, and watching twitterific, and watching TV, and listening to music, and following people on flickr, and reading magazines, and…. It goes on.

I would also like to cut back on the number of things I expect myself to do (keeping up with everything I want to keep up with, maintaining a good relationship with my husband, being a good friend, exercising, making dinner more often, staying in contact with my family, working as much as I have been recently, etc.) and keep things in order better, rather than scrambling so often to fix the problems which could have been prevented (at least partially by shutting down some of my “channels”).

I’d also like to eat better. Stop reaching for cheap candy bars to satisfy my cravings.

AND I would like to spend less, especially on stuff I don’t need, stuff I don’t really want, and stuff that I have no use for after the first month. This is a problem for me particularly when it comes to clothing, because I hate shopping for clothing. I’ll walk in, find something I can stand, buy it, get home and hate it in a week.

So this year I want to focus on “value.” I would like to slow down and truly consider the value of my time, my health, my money, my attention, my energy and my available space (HATE clutter). Determining value is a way to bring balance. What am I willing to give up? What will make my life completely fulfilled? The hidden cost of stuff is really something to consider when buying, watching, reading, or doing just about anything. Choosing to watch TV means that I am either not doing something else, or I am segmenting my attention between TV and another activity. Choosing to carry my yarn with me (which is a little bit of a pain) has an added reward of calming me down through the repetitive motion if I get a little anxious about one thing or another. Anything I buy and bring home takes up a certain amount of space and I always feel a bit of guilt at spending any amount of money. If I fool around instead of getting ready for tomorrow, I end up being really stressed in the morning. Mindless Eating talks about all the unconscious food decisions we make on a daily basis, but what about all of the decisions we make concerning our personal resources?

I hope to be more aware of these choices and try to make them based on what’s important to me, in the long run, rather than what’s good for the moment. To start I’ve been working on a personal mission statement and a five-year plan. Of course it’s a slow process, but I figure having a focus is really the only way to know which direction I should be moving in.

I’m not making any “true” resolutions this month, though I plan to make some in each of the months to come. Maybe I mean that I plan to make “changes,” in any event, this and my post from two days ago refer to the two “base” goals I mean to make, in order to build the tools necessary for changing my life. Whatever you call your goals for the year, this list of tools to manage your resolutions is fantastic. I use fitday.com and use hiveminder.com for my To Do list.

I think of this resolution as a “base coat” something which needs to be applied before I can hope to enact any real changes. If I were to try to “lose weight” prior to getting myself into the habit of “just showing up” to the gym, my chance of success will be lessened. What are your “base coat” resolutions? What tools could you give yourself to help you succeed? Or do you disagree that a “base coat” is necessary to make positive changes in your life? Please feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to hear some other ideas.

I’m half stealing this from The Happiness Project, but it’s come up a number of times in my searches for happiness and improvement. It is impossible to make a change in your life if you don’t show up.

Case in point: my in-laws and I have a strained relationship at best. My hatred of talking on the phone has convinced them that I don’t like them. So? I show up, get on the phone when they call. Stop thinking about how I feel on the defensive when talking to them, especially when I’m put on the speaker phone. If you read the excellent post at the Happiness Project you’ll also see that familiarity breeds affection, which, will help especially well in this instance.

Another, probably more important aspect of Just Showing Up for me, is the Feel the Fear…and Do It Anyway concept. Usually my desire to not show up has the most to do with one fear or another: the fear that no one really likes me, the fear that I won’t have a good time, the fear that I’ll fail at whatever it is. Regardless of what may happen, how badly a conversation may go, I always feel better if I do it than if I don’t. This is, certainly, one of the most difficult things to learn.

Finally, in Just Showing Up, it is necessary to be in the moment. I can’t Just Show Up by living in the past or thinking about the future. I must Just Show Up Now. Not tomorrow. And it doesn’t matter if I didn’t show up yesterday. I must show up today.

There are a few ways I sabotage myself in just showing up:

• I don’t get organized with the things I need.

  • Attending Al-Anon meetings is an important part of improving my depression. Yet for a couple months I would wait until the half hour before I needed to leave to before getting my stuff together, which would give me an excuse of being very late, what with the train schedule and all.

  • Current attempt to fix:

    I’ve developed nightly and morning rituals of checking what will be needed the next day and what might be needed due to weather and how I felt that day. I try to make sure my bag is packed before I go to bed. I remember doing this in grade school, and, to be honest, I really don’t know why we outgrow this habit. Being prepared is one of the first steps to getting out the door, why would we slow this down and start the day in a panic?

• I don’t give myself the time I need to get somewhere.

  • While this can sometimes be attributed to not being organized, I do take the Metro basically everywhere. Let’s face it, it’s not always the best idea to rely on the WMATA’s schedule. And I hate being late.

  • Current attempt to fix:

    I’ve been writing the time of each appointment/date 15 to 20 minutes earlier. While I know that some people will change their clocks back to fix this, I am not in control of many of the clocks in my life. I may know that the appointment is listed too early, but it reminds me of my commitment to myself to provide all the tools needed to succeed.

• I allow myself excuses.

• This is actually the crime I am most guilty of in my life. I can avoid accountability for things by having an excuse. If I’m late I can skip the appointment (because, in my head, it is far more rude to be late, than to not show up). I can give the excuse that I’ve been too busy at work (which may be true), and not feel bad that I didn’t feel like attending something. And, of course, this is fine, but not if I’ve already made the commitment to attend.

• Current attempt to fix:

  Well, stop allowing excuses. If I’m not going to go, fine, but it’s no longer okay to have an excuse for it. I’m not going because it’s not important enough for me to go. If I force myself to look at my priorities, I am responsible for my actions. It may sound like a simplistic fix, but for the moment it’s been working. Of course, organizing my priorities is something else to work on in the next few weeks.

Proof that I am just showing up: I’m writing this. I’ve been putting off writing anything here for the “right” moment. Those never come. You can always come up with (here’s that word, again) excuses for putting something off. So this post is a toast to not putting things of anymore, and to Just Showing Up.

I think of this resolution as a “base coat” something which needs to be applied before I can hope to enact any real changes. If I were to try to “lose weight” prior to getting myself into the habit of “just showing up” to the gym, my chance of success will be lessened. What are your “base coat” resolutions? What tools could you give yourself to help you succeed? Or do you disagree that a “base coat” is necessary to make positive changes in your life? Please feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to hear some other ideas.

This weekend I read the great article on Wired that introduced me to reCaptcha, which I’m now using on my comments. This allows everyone who comments the chance to at once prove they’re human AND help with the digitization of books. The idea of the human race being used as a CPU really appealed to me. And I’ve been enjoying the whole idea for awhile now.

But, back to the Wikipedia, the entire web population is invited in to create a true encyclopedia, of all basically all knowledge. There are certain rules, and people to solve disputes and to kick out rule breakers. And there are enough altruistic knowledge-heads out there who want to assure it’s all going to plan. So they fix errors. They delete bad information. They even make the language prettier. And they seem to do it because it’s fun for them.

Why doesn’t this work in the real world. I have a difficult time with the fact that there are assholes out there who’ll leave macaroni salad in the metro seat cushions. On “bad” days I try to pick fights with them, on good days I just pick up the trash I see. If everyone who is a Good Wikipedia did this, maybe there wouldn’t be so much trash.

Why don’t we take pride in our environment the way we take pride in a clean Wikipedia? We don’t clean up people’s messes, fight over the misplacement of a newspaper in the trash barrel (when there’s CLEARLY a newspaper recycling bin two steps ahead, just as easy to put it into, and still completely in your way), or try to make it pretty by donating. Isn’t this a community that was here before the web? Why would someone fight for days about someone’s death or non-death, but I don’t see anyone other than myself ever picking up the soda cup on the street corner? (I mean, c’MON you STEPPED ON it.)

I admit that this is a large part of my sadness. There’s a hatred I’m trying to shake for my aunts and uncles not caring enough about my dad to see him in the hospital and a recent childhood friend gunned down in a convenience store in MA, but I’m TRYING to see the good. It makes my day when I see someone offer up a seat on the train for someone else (no, not for me, though that’s nice, too) or when someone sits down next to me and says “Good morning” (seriously, made me remember for the hour train ride that other people are NOT simply obstacles to get around).

I don’t know, I’m corny. I sit in front of a computer most of the day. But wouldn’t it be SO great if we actually did all work together to do a LITTLE piece? Just like every time you make an entry into the wikipedia you contribute to the entire breadth of the web’s knowledge, or when you fill out my comment form you translate one teeny word?

Yeah, geeky.

You can also see how far I’m running at http://runlog.media.mit.edu/users/profile/491. I’d love a site that’s as simple as this program with an rss feed, but I prefer the simplicity to the rss. Priorities, you know.

Yoga-ing again. And lifting weights on the day I don’t run. But I’ve decided that it’s the distance that matters, not the calories. I can concentrate on these things, too, but it’s the distance I want to track. And it’s such a nice, simple, clean site. It’s pleasant in a way I can’t explain.

I haven’t forgotten my promise, only where I’ve left the cord to my camera…

Here There Be Dragons,
originally uploaded by random_squeegee.

I “missed” yesterday. Only I didn’t because I spent a good deal of time writing this entry. But now it doesn’t look so good.

This picture from Random_Squeegee (as luck would have it, another graphic designer) is from King’s Castle Land which was once in Whitman, MA. We passed the Stop & Shop and development which now stand in it’s old location. The Toll House Cookie spot is also pretty much gone.

It’s always odd to come back here. But things seem even more faded today. Some street signs are all but unintelligible, it is the freshly painted homes with well-kept lawns which stand out, and all the trees in my mom’s lawn are dying.

I know it’s not as bad as all that. There’re new things. But they tend to be things like the Stop and Shop. This town is no longer the huge world it once was. A place where we could conquer dragons (yes, you could feel the flame when you stood under them. A place where giants roamed.

I wish I had photos of King’s Castle. I may sift through the old photos my mom has here. Let you see the world as I did as a kid.

Magical Birthday Spider,
originally uploaded by Bohemian Delilah.

So, I’ve decided to start writing for at least 1/2 hour each day. Can’t decide whether photos count in that. But, tonight I’m tired. And so I don’t believe I can do an hour.

I had a great birthday. I love seeing my family. I love seeing my mom. And Dames, well, you’re just swell.

Tom gave me the Lorem Ipsum bracelet from Veer and the Dark Side of the Garden t-shirt from Threadless that I had ealier, but lost. I love these gifts, but the greatest part was the super sweet things he said in the card about celebrations we’ll celebrate for the rest of our lives.

I’m happy.