We know that lots of unexpected things come across our paths - that’s the whole theory of natural chaos. Unforseen events sometimes just show up on our doorsteps.
When you look ahead though you often can see things on the horizon that will likely interrupt your new habit or at least make it a little more challenging. Take the time to look at your upcoming schedule to determine where things might interfere with your progress - things like extra family commitments, work deadlines, travel, or holidays.
Planning ahead for those interruptions before they arrive allows you to have a Plan B. Successful peole excel at Plan B. Perhaps you will decide now to use one of your escape hatches then. Or perhaps you can enlist extra help from your buddy to keep on track. Or knowing that your commitments increase for a few days, you’ll decide to scale back your habit a bit - get in 20 minutes of exercise rather than 30.
Having a plan in place ahead of time lets you keep the momentum going. If you wait until you are up tp your eyeballs in interruptions, it’s harder to stay the course.
Tune in tomorrow for a tip on managing univited chaos.
Is it just me or have we all been time warped back to junior high school?
I love journalist Misty Harris because she often writes about the more curious aspects of our culture. Her latest article is about a new online community open only to “beautiful people.” Apparently they have a “strict ban on ugliness.”
On the website there is a disclaimer that you need a good photo because your appearance will determine whether existing members will vote you in. I wonder who voted in the first group of people?
Back to junior high
Doesn’t this sound a whole lot like junior high school when people were sorted by a random few into the “in crowd.” You either made the cut or you didn’t - usually based on some highly subjective and most definitely superficial basis. For most of us we outgrew this by the time we left high school. We realized that there is a whole lot more to people than hairstyles, labels, flat abs and high cheekbones.
This beautiful people website describes itself as being for “people who stand out from the majority because of their attractive appearance and personal qualities.” Since the initial sorting of who is in and who is out is based entirely on what quite likely is an airbrushed digitally enhanced photo, I’m guessing we know at least a bit about the personal qualities of the people who subscribe. I’m curious about who actually wants to be part of this group.
Beauty in the eye of the beholder
The thing about beauty is it’s rather subjective. Who I think is hot - or not - might completely clash with someone else’s version of who is attractive. Not wanting to anger millions of Tom Cruise fans but for me he’s too much of a pretty boy. Same for Matthew McConaughey. I more of a Johnny Depp girl myself. Donald Trump once declared that he didn’t find Angelina Jolie attractive. Millions would disagree.
I’ve known some absolutely gorgeous guys that were quite frankly toads and some guys that most likely wouldn’t have made the cut on this website who were absolute princes. In the end what makes someone truly attractive at a deep level goes far past physical appearance.
If you start a club, you get to set the rules about who is let into the clubhouse. I think what bugs me about this website is that it pokes at our deepest fears of inadequacy:
“Am I enough?”
Apparently nine out of ten of us are not beautiful enough for this group.
Maybe I’ll start my own club. Maybe I’ll call it “Enough already!” Leave a comment if you want the secret handshake.
It’s amazing the judgments we catch ourselves making. Who would have thought that a butcher in a small Tuscan town was actually a renaissance man?
After a long hike through the Tuscan countryside our group ended up at Antica Macelleria Cecchini in the village of Panzano for a pre-arranged dinner with Dario Cecchini. He’s a fifth generation butcher whose family has owned their shop for more than 250 years.
Dario shared with us his philosophy of treating all things with equal respect. He explained that we tend to assign higher value to certain cuts of meat which means that other ones are then considered less worthy. Dario challenged us to consider the inherent value in everything, to treat all the parts of the animal with the same degree of respect. To entertain the idea that simply because something might take more of our time and energy does not diminish its worth.
So we feasted on a meal made from the cow’s knees and shin - a meal that required several hours of preparation to create the tender dishes we enjoyed. Good conversation, fine wine, and to top it all off, at the end of the evening Dario jumped on the table and recited by heart a canto of Dante’s Inferno. Splendid in its original Italian, the impromptu performance moved everyone with its passion.
Food for thought
How many times do we go through our day voting that “this” is better than “that” or giving less time and attention to things that we have decided are less valuable?
How quickly do we dismiss this based on some pre-conceived idea?
How often do we limit ourselves because we have created a hierarchy for people and experiences?
How frequently in our super speed world do we choose quick and easy out of habit without weighing the option of slower?
Delicacies in the tuscan countryside
Dario left me some tasty food for thought. His challenge to treat everything with equal respect has remained with me like a satisfying meal. I find myself stopping to consider what hierarchy I’m unconsciously creating or which way I’m voting at any given time. You never know what delicacies you’ll find in the Tuscan countryside.
I hear all the time “don’t sweat the small stuff.” How can I begin to do that?
We all get distracted by little annoyances, wanting to get it right or our particular pet peeves. When we let them become the focus of our days, we tend to feel irritated and overwhelmed. The key to not sweating the small stuff is being clear about the big stuff. What matters most to you? In the big scheme of things, are mismatched socks, Cheerios for dinner or how the dishwasher is loaded really all that important?
When you are feeling overwhelmed or annoyed, one simple technique to try is to stop and ask yourself, “Will this really matter one year from today?” If the answer is no, then take a deep breath and let it go. If the answer is yes, then take a deep breath and re-focus with that in mind.
Another way to sweat less of the small stuff is to have less of it on your plate. Get back to basics. Are you someone who tends to say yes to too many commitments? Do you have difficulty saying no because you feel guilty or selfish? Learning some simple tricks to setting boundaries can go a long way in having less small stuff to deal with.
Here’s the most important reason to let the little things go.
Richard Carlson, the author of the “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” series of books, died unexpectedly at the age of 45. You can be sure he was very glad that his short life was not cluttered up by small stuff.
What life coaching question would you like to ask Laurel?
admin | Perspective | Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Sometimes someone else takes exactly what you’re thinking and says it just perfectly.
Nic Askew is a talented film-maker who makes short films about life and the human spirit for monday9amfilms.
What if life were hidden in the heart of every experience?
That’s what loving the chaos is all about. Life brings you the whole spectrum of colours, emotions, and experiences. Deciding to fall in love with all of it is what balance is all about.
That’s because Monday is the day our fabulous housekeeper Katie arrives to transform our home back into a thing of organized and sanitized beauty.
It’s not that we can’t take care of all of the housekeeping tasks that Katie oversees - it’s just that we’d really rather not. And go figure, she’s one of those people who actually loves cleaning. When she’s finished for the day we can actually eat off the kitchen floor - and I don’t mean the crumbs that tend to collect during the week.
Lots of people suffer from CHAOS
… the Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. In our busy busy lives, clutter runs amok and we begin to curtail our in-home social activities. Even more sadly, our homes stop being a place of refuge and turn into a place of refuse. Hiring Katie to keep things under control is a great gift of balance we give ourselves each week.
Everybody seems to be in search of that elusive life balance.While everyone keeps looking, few of them seem to be finding it. That’s because one of biggest mistakes that people make is to create a faulty picture in their mind of a life in balance. They think life balance means quiet, calm and peaceful.
Not a chance.
Everybody can have a quiet, calm and peaceful life when things are relatively quiet, calm and peaceful. True life balance happens when you are able to weather the times of what I call natural chaos.
You know those times. Things are going along pretty well and BOOM - something happens that disrupts the flow of life.
A traffic jam is a perfect example of natural chaos.
They happen all the time and are pretty much out of your control. And many times you are actually experiencing the ghost of a traffic jam - there doesn’t seem to be any real reason why the cars are crawling along.
What do people typically do when natural chaos descends? They fight against it and that causes a huge sense of imbalance. They direct a lot of energy into the chaos rather than having some strategies for going with the new flow.
Natural chaos swirls around us all the time.
It’s supposed to - that’s the natural part. John Lennon said it best, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” It’s knowing how to fall in love with chaos that puts you in the driver’s seat to life balance.
