Acceptance & The Return

Well, I ate too much yesterday, but I'm up early enough to get to writing group without hurrying. I win some and lose some. I don't have a piece of writing to bring to group, but there are other things to do there besides focusing on me.

I ate all three meals yesterday out at restaurants — a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, burger, fries and beer for lunch; taco, fries, and margarita at dinner. No wonder the scale read 220.0 pounds this morning when I was 216.8 yesterday. Have I really gained 3.2 solid pounds in a day? No, but it's a reminder to do things differently today.

Tomorrow I'll be back at 216-217 pounds. It won't require much effort beyond returning to habits I've built the last month and a half. I have three steps planned:

1. Return to two light meals prepared at home,
2. Continue fifty push-ups a day, working on twenty consecutive, and
3. Hit the gym or go for a run.

Nothing complicated, radical, or new. It's just a return to what I've been doing and how I have been feeling.

How have I been feeling? Better until this morning when I woke tired, feeling there was still food in my belly. I woke up feeling full, knowing I had made mistakes yesterday.

Yet I'm not feeling guilt, anger, or even disappointment. That's pretty weird for me. Weirder still, I feel comfortable knowing I'm ready to return, that I'm already returning. I'm not about to redouble my efforts or get down to serious work on this. No, I'm just returning to what I've been doing. Yesterday happened and I know why. I accept it.

Previously, losing weight was about will power and giving things up. Guess how well that worked. This time, instead of will power I'm depending on accepting who I am while still believing in the need for change. It's a weird balance that I can't explain well but feel strongly and that's enough. I accept yesterday's eating and I'm open to the return to my habits.

Accepting the bad and good paves the way for the gift of a return. The return isn't about past mistakes or problems. It's welcoming myself with gratitude and happiness, maybe even love and returning to the journey.

That sense of return allows me to better accept that the journey is long and that in turn makes it easy to dismiss small problems. I was sick for nine days, but that doesn't end the journey. I ate poorly yesterday, but that hardly matters on the journey. No need to pile on the idea that I have to make up for mistakes and repair damage. I just return to what I had been doing.

What about the weight? Earlier I said that I'll be 216-217 pounds tomorrow. That sounds like I'll have to punish myself for yesterday's mistake with a day of fasting or a killer workout, but I'm sure the return will take me where I want to go, that I'll be back in the groove and things will just work out. No punishment necessary.

I feel lighter than when I woke, lighter than when I started writing this. I'm feeling the return and acceptance, the trust that the path to which I'm returning is a good one. If nothing else, I'm lighter for shedding the dead weight of guilt and recrimination. Acceptance turns out to be so much lighter.

Read To Be

This is one of those posts that feels like it says something, but I'm posting it wondering if it says anything at all. Good thing about a blog is that I can just let you figure that out.

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The other day I wrote about how I hadn't finished any books in January until I sat my butt down and finished one. That, as usual, led to me wanting to read more. I had Ryan Holiday's Stillness Is The Key and read the first page, standing at the kitchen counter waiting to take my daughter to school. I was hooked. Three days later, I finished the final pages.

Some books I read just for fun, to hear a story, but usually I dig more out of a book than just entertainment. Mostly, I read to learn. That sounds holier than thou, but I dig learning. When people ask what time in my life I'd go back to do again, I say college because I loved when my only job was to learn new things.

Hang on. That's kind of my job now except that rather than grades, how well I learn determines whether or not my organization survives.

In college, a woman working to finish an essay due the next day wailed, it's too much pressure! I asked what the hell she was talking about. We had had the assignment for weeks. Hers was mostly drafted. Mine was done. The worst that could happen is she'd get a lousy grade. Our only job was to write an essay according to the assignment, revise the hell out of it, and (here's the part that's easy to forget) learn something in the process to use the next time around. Not much pressure there, but her wailing helped me see my situation more clearly. In a flash of insight, I understood what I was doing, what I was there to do, and how to do it.

Do I understand my current situation in my new job? Ryan Holiday's book brings me a step closer. He's a good teacher too and didn't wail on any of the 260 pages of his book. So far as I can tell, my job is to be open to learning and accept that I don't know everything I want to know. I've been at this job all of 262 days, not long enough to know much of anything. I have a lot of struggle ahead.

Struggle? That doesn't sound good.

But it is good. On almost every one of the 260 pages of Holiday's book I found something that helped and nudged me. That's nothing compared to help and nudges I receive on the job most every day, each of which helps me do and be more. It's a matter of time, acceptance, openness, and diligence. I've got this.

I have to remind myself of such things because anxiety, that Godzilla-sized monster, lurks within me ready to awaken, trample all my buildings, and breathe fire over the landscape of everything I am. I have to remind myself to breathe, to keep going, and to believe.

Reading helps me remember that I'm searching and trying to find balance just like most everyone else. I'll always want to know more but am well-advised to be content with who I am in this moment. Striving and contentment balance one another. Holiday calls this stillness. I'm just as happy calling it being.

I can think of no better way to be than taking on new challenges, learning new things, and not wailing when anxiety attacks. I need all the teachers I can find. So I'll keep reading, finishing one book and seeing another waiting on the desk, one that I can't wait to begin. It's like beginning another day, sun coming up, sky open to infinity, and me rising from slumber to see what there is to read and learn before the sun goes down.

Soap-A-Dope

Had a shave this morning and got thinking about how long it takes before things end. Does everyone muse philosophically while shaving?

I use a shaving cup, a puck of soap and a brush. I recommend it completely. It's satisfying to warm the brush in the hot water, swirl it in the cup bringing up a froth, and apply the soap and brush softly to my face. Much better than using canned shaving cream, having it all over my fingers, wasting metal and plastic. Cup, puck, and brush are better, cheaper, greener tools.

And the soap lasts forever.

I bought a new puck of soap in November. Usually I pop it in on top of whatever soap is in the cup, but I wanted to use up the old soap this time and clean the cup. I figured it would take a couple weeks to use the last of the soap. That was two and a half months ago. As January closes, I bet that I won't finish that soap until March. It just goes on and on.

I try not be in a rush. The new soap is mint and will feel extra good on my face. The old soap is plain as can be. I want to get to the new stuff, as I often do. Instead, I'm making waiting, trying to be present and enjoy how long this soap is lasting.

It's easy for me to want what's next. That's how I miss what is and forget that contentment comes in the moment, not down the line. Waiting for something better misses the joy of the moment.

This morning I ran water until it was hot, plugged the drain, rested my safety razor and brush in the sink and let hot water rise over them. I wet and warmed my face, turned off the tap, and looked in the mirror. Picking up the brush, I shook it dry once, twice, then picked up the soap cup and swirled the brush in it. White foam rose around the brush, thick and full. I brushed that softly onto my face and it felt warm and good. I set the brush back in the cup and picked up the razor.

Then I paused and considered things. The old soap goes on and on. The new soap waits. My face was prepared and ready for shaving. My hand was steady. My mind too. I took a deep breath, held it, and let it go as I took the first stroke through foamed soap. I felt then that I might go on and on almost without end.

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A nice puck of soap costs about seven dollars and lasts at least three months shaving daily and comes packed only in a small sheet of plastic wrap. I'm looking for a local (Syracuse) soap maker from whom to order so as to avoid the plastic.

Old News

I've thought of a news service to which I would subscribe. Surely someone has already had the idea and someone can point me toward it. If not, if this is totally novel, I offer the idea for anyone to run with and make millions. It's all yours.

I want Old News, a publication reporting only on things at least three weeks old. No breaking news. No live coverage. Nothing new in this news. I want only the stories that still matter three weeks later.

This would get rid of anything coming from Twitter. That alone sells the service to me. I'd also hear almost no he said, she said. Gossip has a short shelf life. Sports headlines wouldn't make the cut either, though there could still be great stories from sports.

There would be plenty of room for book reviews, preferably written three weeks after the reviewer finished the book.

There would be analysis of what we had learned about the effects of decisions, events, and encounters after three weeks.

This would be a reflective, deliberative news site. My guess is that it could be centrist with room for analysis that bent left and right.

This could be a print magazine or a website so long as the webmaster didn't get an itchy finger.

Until Old News comes along (or I find where it's being done already), none of the news institutions are getting my dime. I can wait at least until something they are telling me matters in the long term.