Finding the Goods: the MARCH challenge

don't let the sun go down on your 'good' - write it down & remember. (I take pictures of my 'goods' too...this sunset was one of them)

There are many ways writing can be used to create positive change in one’s life. Part of my 2012 strategy is to explore a different writing focus every month. The first two months have been interesting: throughout January I kept all the printouts from the self-check out counter at the library, taped them into my journal and wrote what caught my fancy about the items on that checkout list (double bonus: it also turned out to be a great way to track what books I ended up wanting to add to my own personal library). February has been spent focusing on redeveloping my “things to do today” list-making ability…as my new adventure has indicated early on that multiple pages of these lists (per day! what have I done?) are a necessary evil…aacckkk!

This is what is on the agenda for March: I’m going to record all major activities of each day. At the end of each day, I’ll use a “goodness” scale (from 1-10) to assign an overall rating to that day  - where 10 is a “most brilliant!” day, 5 is a “standard issue” day, and 1 is a “can I just crawl in and not come out for a week?” kind of day. Come the end of the month, I’ll review my entries and look for a correlation between days that scored 6 or higher and the activities I recorded for that day. Having then identified the “good” factors in my life, the goal will then be to integrate more of these types of activities into my day and – in theory –  have more good days! I urge you to try it and see what you discover as you find the goods in your own life.

As for me,  I had so much fun with January’s Library Challenge, I’ve decided to continue that particular challenge for the rest of the year. I can only imagine how many boxes of journals I’d be lugging around today had I done this faithfully since I signed up for my first library card at age 6

Question of the Day: I’m looking for guest posts from anyone who takes on the March Challenge. Please let me know by the end of March if you think you’d be interested.

Perception is Everything

Suddenly, my need for new furniture seems rather insignificant

I spent the last two weeks organizing ‘stuff’ for my new adventure. I had one major rule…whatever I was taking, it had to fit in the car. Over the course of a week, I plowed through more stuff than I ever remembered owning. Finally I had to stop and take a break from it all. When I sat down to peruse one of my favourite websites, lo and behold…here was this picture. Suddenly it struck me: why do I have this incessant need for ‘stuff’? I certainly can’t take it with me when I’m dead and gone. What is more important in my life – things or experiences? From this perspective, my stuff doesn’t make a whit of difference to the world as a whole. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow most people would be talking about me…not my stuff (unless you’re my aunt, and then you’d be putting dibs on my shoe collection…).

Now don’t get me wrong…I have nothing against a luxury 500 thread count set of sheets enveloping a luscious pillow top mattress or a comfy reading chair. But if someone told me I had to use a hard-earned ten thousand dollars to either furnish my house with brand name stuff  or experience things that interested me (opera houses, beaches, travel & photography, camping/hiking, etc) to which choice would I instinctively (and honestly…) gravitate towards? (why do I torture myself such questions?)

I agonized over my inability to make a clear choice…then I realized I needed both! Now if I won the lottery, getting 100% of both would be a non-issue. However, as I’m still punching a clock, it became more important to me to identify how to create balance in meeting these needs. So I assigned a value percentage to each aspect. Experiences was the clear winner at 70%, ‘stuff’ at 30%.

Of course, this whole exercise smacks of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – it’s frightening how simple, yet correct, this model is. Even though I know that I can’t take my ‘stuff’ with me, it serves a more immediate need: perception of safety and belonging somewhere (a welcoming, safe place to live), and self-esteem (my space represents my own individual self).

When these needs are being adequately met, we have the opportunity to move into a state of self-actualization and maximize our experiences during the time we have on this earth. Did you catch the problem presented in my last sentence? Yes…that’s it:  ”…adequately met…”. Ask anyone to define their perception of “adequate” and it is likely to be radically different from the next person’s definition. Hello eternal paradox…how much is enough? All I know is that having had to load, and unload, the almost unbelievable amount of stuff I managed to cram into one car, my incentive to “live light” has increased exponentially

Question of the Day: how do you define “enough” ?