Choose to Do You

I’ve been experimenting. For the past week, before I make any decision—even the smallest—I ask myself: What do I want to do?

Sounds like a ridiculously obvious way to make a decision. But try it. In this culture of shoulds and musts, it can be shockingly difficult. Shocking because this is also a culture that encourages you to “do you”—so you think you’re doing what you want to do. At least I did.

I'm not one of those women who selflessly devotes all her time to her children or who is married to her job. I love my crew and I like my work, but I make sure I zip out for yoga class at least twice a week. I make time for coffee with my girls. I’ll buy myself something pretty when I get a notion. I make time for my own pursuits.

But for many of us, doing what you want to do means fitting your stuff around someone’s staff meeting, someone’s piano lessons, someone’s doctor’s appointment, someone’s nap schedule. And that someone isn’t you.

This week I realized it was impossible for me to make a decision without first thinking about what was on Said Husband’s schedule or Little Bitty’s wish list or someone else's agenda. I’d said yes to baby-sitting, an out-of-town shopping trip, a graduation ceremony, and a pot-luck before I could stop and think of myself.

The more you start working your stuff around someone else’s stuff, the further back you fall in line and the more likely your own stuff is to be bumped or back burnered. If you’re not careful, you start to forget what it is that you really want or like to do. You start to think that your happiness lies in how well Junior performed at the piano recital or how much lower hubby’s cholesterol is since you’ve been cooking more.

And you are happy about all that. You love these people. You are glad to support them.
The problem is not saying yes to other people. The problem is when it means you’re saying no to you.

What about me? That is the question that’s going to stop you from drifting into a totally co-dependent state where you cease to exist outside of the people around you—an invisible state that evolves from ignoring your own gifts, talents, passions and desires until they finally atrophy, shrink and wither.

My friend Renai, who does a fabulous job of executing her own creative energy—despite running around after an ailing mother, an ailing man and two busy kids—admits that “doing you” is a hard job to manage.

“I was thinking the other day that I know why women/moms just opt to put our needs on the back burner or nix them altogether,” she says. “It's damn hard. I always feel like I'm trying to squeeze in a little bit for me and not a day goes by when I just don't want to throw my hands up and say, “Forget it.” But I eek out 5 minutes here and an hour there; maybe that's the way it has to be for now.

The point is that she’s...eeking. Which means she’s asking herself the magic question. And she’s answering it. And she’s doing the hardest part of the experiment: choosing to do what she knows her own heart desires.

There will be folks who find this amazingly selfish and practically impossible. In the real world, no one can just do whatever she wants to do, we think. But that’s guilt-rooted thinking. Instead, think of it this way: what you want to do is what your spirit calls for. And if you’re moving in Spirit, everything else will move in Divine Order. That makes way for the possibility that you can do what you want to do WITHOUT HURTING ANYONE ELSE. You can do what you want to do AND everyone around you will be fine.

It’s true. At least it has been for me, for this week.

Choosing Your Lane

I just finished listening to Brick Lane. I bought Monica Ali's book on tape for a road trip that never materialized, and have since been listening piecemeal each time I go on an errand that takes more than 5 minutes. Little Bitty has been enthralled—“Mommy, can we hear the story?”—probably more fascinated by the lyrical cadence of the narrator’s Euro/Bangladeshi accent(s) than the story itself. (It's not a children's book by any means.)

It’s a story of a woman, Nazneen, whose arranged marriage took her from Bangladesh to London with a highly mis-educated, vapid, but kind husband—and the cultural evolution that happens for her and her family in the years just before and after 9/11. There’s a bit of romance and a bit of politics. But the theme is mainly this: Does one wait and allow one’s life to be arranged by fate—by God? Or must you take your life into your own hands?

For Westerners it seems like a no-brainer. We’re all about self-determination, venturing forth, blazing trails. But the book illustrates how difficult a choice it would be if you’d been raised from the womb in a culture where, as a woman, as a Muslim, you understood that virtue lay in allowing your fate to be decided for you. Trying to be a good wife, Nazneen relies on prayer, housework, family caretaking, and mental submission to her husband’s winding academic monologues to suppress any thoughts that might veer into the realm of decision-making.

Most of us would recoil at the thought. (How Third World!) So we do the same thing without thinking.

Don’t we? I do. There are times when, rather than put my mind to the task of accomplishing a major goal, I delay. Let me just wash these dishes; it’s only a few. It won’t take but a minute to make the bed. I can tackle my stuff after I return this phone call. After I create another blog post.

I put my mind to the things I know I can accomplish easily—things I can see. (Look at the china sparkle!) It’s easier and yields a quicker payoff than getting to the difficult business of taking action and making decisions that will have a bigger influence on my fate.

I think for those of us with any kind of religious background, there is, ingrained, the idea that the Higher Power knows what is best for us and will nudge us in that direction, keeping our destination a secret from us until the very last minute—then leaving us to deal with it as best our faith will allow.

But, whether we’re religious or not, the idea of making a decision—and possibly making a mistake—is harder than relying on something or someone else to decide for us: a husband’s subtle preference, a child’s pressing need, a friend’s admonition, the cards in the Tarot deck, a sign in the stars.

To take our lives into our own hands makes us…well, responsible for our lives. And perhaps, deep down, we know what a grave and precious responsibility that is. Perhaps, paradoxically, it is because we know how important our lives are—how vital our purpose on the planet—that we suppress, procrastinate, equivocate and delay. We think that our own lives are too important for us to touch. But that can’t be true, can it?

And at some point, for many of us—if we’re listening; if we are present in our bodies at all—the call to lay our hands on our our own lives gets to be too great. You feel yourself pushed away from a situation that doesn’t suit. Or pulled to pursue a calling that gets louder and louder. At some point you realize that you are not fighting against a Higher Power, but responding to Its demands. And when that becomes clear, what is there to do but reach out to your own life and take it in your hands? What can you do but become your own Fate?

That is Nazneen's story. Check it out for inspiration.

Wow, Isn't He Great!

Today my burly, surly, buzz-cut Asian UPS guy (who has the most beautiful legs you've ever seen in brown shorts) rang the bell and dropped a package on my porch. A review copy of a to-be-published book. I opened the package and read the title.

Your Man is Wonderful

I don’t know about you, but I’m big on Signs from the Universe and this seemed like a neon billboard. Okay, okay, I thought. I get it. I’ve got to appreciate my guy more. I’ve got to be more affectionate. I’ve got to overlook his little flaws and quirks and annoying habits. Okay. OKAY!

It actually seems like a good book—and probably an even easier read than the Susan Page one I've been trying to get through. I skimmed it and it does say some simple, pertinent things about how to remember he's a good guy. Here’s the gist:

Good = honest, reliable, trustworthy, responsive, responsible and appreciative.

That’s it.

And here’s the problem: We don’t see these “wonders” because

• We don’t recognize how vital and important these basics are
• “We pick (to death) a man’s superficial flaws”
• We don’t allow the emotional space for the good stuff to grow
• We want what they can’t give us

In other words, we expect too much. That’s basically it, isn’t it? We want more than they can give us.

I’m going to read the book more thoroughly and see what else it has to offer. (BTW, it's by Noelle Nelson Ph.D. and it's due out in January.) It seems worth ruminating on. I know that I’m guilty of all four of the “don’ts” above. I don’t often stop to think that, I married Said Husband because he had the six good qualities—and I recognized them as a great foundation for a good relationship. Those feel like lowest common denominators for me. But I’m also beginning to recognize that time takes its toll and if someone isn't actively cultivating those qualities or allowing them to “flourish,” the denominator can get lower. The guy who used to be responsive shuts down. The one who used to be there when you needed him can’t be found.

My problem is that when I'm asked to do more to "cultivate" him, I get caught up in this burning question: Where is the book called Your Woman is Wonderful? The self-help bookshelves are lined with books about how to find a great guy and make him happy. But I don’t remember having seen titles that offer the “wonderful” man advice on how to show appreciation for the wife who bore his 8-pound babies and picks up his stiff, sweaty socks after she comes home from work and before she starts cooking dinner.

That’s the thing that makes me feel just...tired. With all the work that women do—much that goes unnoticed, unappreciated or dismissed—we’re also supposed to find time to develop strategies for cultivating his wonderfulness and protecting his six precious qualities.

I want to see the book for guys called Wow, Your Wife is Great or Man, What a Catch! Maybe it’s out there and I just haven’t seen it. I’m going to do a search. I’ll let you know what I find.

The Best Worst-Case Scenario.

I wish I could remember who originated the concept. It was years ago when I first read about it in Ladies Home Journal or some supermarket women’s magazine. The advice was that, when you’re faced with a difficult situation, ask yourself: What is the worst thing that could happen? Then, once you’ve got that worst-case scenario in mind, ask yourself another question: If the worst thing did happen, what would I do?

It’s brilliant, because A) the worst thing that could happen probably won’t, but B) if it does, you’re ready for it. And C) if you have a strategy for dealing with the very bad, then any thing that happens on the spectrum between the worst thing and the best thing, will be a piece of cake to deal with. Because you have a plan.

If you’re really susceptible to pessimism, this may not be a good exercise for you; you don’t want to fall into a rabbit hole of negative thinking. And folks who believe in the Law of Attraction—that you draw to you the thing you think about—will be squeamish about giving any mental energy to any “worst thing.”

But I don’t dwell on the worst. I don’t expect the worst. And my focus isn’t on the “bad thing.” My focus is on the best thing I could do about it. What could I do to turn an unpleasant situation into something good? How would I make the best of a bad turn of events?

A fine example lies with the parents who lost children in the Katrina floods or the tsunami in the Indian Ocean—and then adopted orphans who’d lost their own parents. Their “worst case” didn’t devastate them; instead it resulted in incredible generosity and an outpouring of healing love. Of course I’m sure they hadn’t anticipated the tragedy they'd faced—who could have imagined that? But the point is that they found strength and hope when it was most likely to have been washed away. That’s what the exercise is about to me: looking for strength, tapping into hope.

What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best I could do? Once I imagine the thing and then see myself dealing with it, it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. I see where my resources lie. I make note of—and give thanks for—my support system. Worry disappears, and a sense of empowered gratitude takes its place. And that’s the best-case scenario.