Month: March 2016

 

I just finished my fifth reading of a web article called 26 Habits of Exceptionally Successful People  by Richard Feloni.   It’s based on the teachings of Andrew Carnegie & Napoleon Hill, both experts on success.  It’s not long, it’s not complicated, but every time I read it I feel like it’s almost futile for a person like me to be a person like that.   Or is it?

When you think about a successful person who do you picture?  I could guess right now who most of you would think of, but I’m not going on record with that.   But was it a man or a woman?  Was he or she wealthy?  Did you choose a celebrity, a relative, or a politician?

The article I read, and will probably read again, lists the number one habit of  success as “making up your mind about how much success you want, and defining the terms of that success.” I never really thought much about habit #1 before because I was busy lamenting over two other things listed that I’m NOT in the habit of doing: being decisive, and paying attention to details.

One other important nugget mentioned (#2) is to know your motives.  Of course!  And what does this mean to a person like me?   It means my motives need improvement.

Sometimes I feel like I was born with defective DNA because I am not motivated to have shiny kitchen counters, vacuumed car mats, balanced checkbooks, or show up on time, every time, with everything I need….  but maybe I just need the right motivation.   Is it possible to change?  That’s an entirely separate lecture, article, and reflection but let’s say it is.  What would be the motivation for that?  Self improvement?  Leading by example? Happiness?

This brings me back to #1 habit listed in the article – defining and measuring your own success.  Given that prescription, I will define my own success by getting up everyday and doing what needs to be done, fix it up and make it do, and going to bed with my husband and three teenagers safely home, whether they like it or not,  and getting the cat in for the night.

It might sound lazy but there you go — success.

If you’d like to read the piece by Feloni, click here and have a very successful Monday y’all.

 

 

 

 

I don’t like Mondays. Does anybody?  I’ve always preferred to take a day off on a Monday over a  Friday when I want a long weekend, because I don’t want my extended weekend to end with a Monday morning.

Apparently the US Government also felt that Monday mornings were better spent away from work when they passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Law.  But what I find most  interesting about this document is that the bill was signed as law in June of 1968, but it wasn’t put into effect until January 1st, 1971 which was 155 Mondays later.

And the United States isn’t the only country who has a problem with Mondays. According to a study by Marmite, a British food company, most of us find Mondays so difficult that we can’t even smile until after 11am, half of us will be late for work on Monday and  most and will moan for around 12 minutes during the day.

Marmite’s study also offers some ways to help fight the Monday blues.  Recommendations include watching television, having sex, shopping, and eating chocolate.  I wonder how much money the spent figuring that out?

And the music industry proves the point even further with an abundance of music about Mondays, and none of it uplifting. Here are some, with links to the music videos..

I Don’t Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats

Rainy Days and Mondays –  The Carpenters

Manic Monday – The Bangles

Monday Monday – The Mamas and Papas

Blue Monday – Fats Domino

But all is not lost with Mondays.  I did find a couple of good things. Historically Monday it’s the least rainy day of the week and it’s also the best day to buy a car.  That might be because most people shop for cars on the weekend, making salespeople happier on Monday from a great sales weekend.  Or, it’s possible that they sold no cars over the weekend  and are more desperate to meet a quota, but either way…

So my afternoon of research about Mondays has led me to this.  You should take Mondays off whenever possible, eat chocolate, have sex, enjoy the sunshine and go shopping.   When explained that way, Mondays don’t seem so bad.

    I am exhausted today, and probably will be for the next week.   And it’s just an hour right?  It shouldn’t be such a big deal to move the clock up, or back an hour, but is there really a problem with daylight?

In 1895 a man named George Hudson, for very selfish reasons, started this whole thing because he didn’t like darkness after work – it limited his bug collecting time.   His job as a postal worker in New Zealand ended in the evening and as we all know, winter daylight is shorter.  There was less time for George to walk around after work with a net and catch bugs.   Now to be fair he was a big deal bug collector, but come on!   He requested  a change in the time of day by submitting a written request to the guy in charge of New Zealand and voila! That was the first country to have Daylight Savings Time (DST).   Our buddy  George was given an award in 1927 by which time the earth was rife with time changes.

In the United  States, during and after WWI and WWII,  there were some acceptable uses for Daylight Savings Time.  But, after WWII the regulation and practicality flipped quite a bit across the country.  In the 1960’s, our transportation industry was a mess because the entire country wasn’t using the same time within the time zones, making schedule keeping a nightmare so federal regulation was again put in place.  And then in the 1970’s, the US energy crisis also required DST tweaking in order reduce the need for electricity by providing more daylight evening hours.

Sine then, Scientists, Universities, and Government Agencies have spent hundreds of millions of our dollars in research to determine whether or not DST is something we non bug collectors still need.   The results are unanimous     more research is needed.

Welcome to the USA.

So let’s go back for a minute to George Hudson, one man who liked bugs and who wrote to the guy in charge.  George changed the way the planet keeps time.   I bet I’m not the first, or only person to think it’s time for another change.  Instead of back and forth with one hour year after year can’t we  just make one permanent 30 minute adjustment across the planet and put the whole business to rest?  I guess we need a man like George Hudson again.

And I need a nap.

I’m trying to get in shape.  For me, that sentence conjures up an image of the blobby GAK product from a decade ago.  You could mold it into any shape you wanted, but, eventually it turned into a blobby slab and there was really nothing you could do about it.

I need to think more like kinetic sand.  That stuff is amazing.  It looks like regular sand but you can mold or sculpt it into any shape and it stays put.  

So in an effort to transform my GAK self into Kinetic Sand, I went to LA Fitness to take whatever ‘the next available class was’ last Sunday afternoon.   It was a cycle class, also called spinning.   There was one beginning in fifteen minutes and the current one was about to end.  I watched through the glass doors as the nice looking young girl hollered things to the cyclers in the room, motivating them to work harder.  I rehearsed what I would say.  “Hi my name is Helen, and I’ve never done this before.”  She would say, “Great! Newcomers are always welcome.  I’m Nancy, I’ll show you what to do.”

What happened instead was that Nancy left and the next instructor showed up.  His name was named Tyrone.   Have you seen The Rock?

Okay he wasn’t The Rock but he may as well have been.  So  at this point I’m not at all happy now about bringing my GAK body over to The Rock and explaining that I was new.

“Are you the teacher?”

“I am the instructor.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“I was going to take this class.”

“Okay.”

“I’m new.”

“Okay.”

“Ummm….”

“Pick a bike,”

“Are they all the same?”

“Yes.”

“This one?”

“No, you better use this one here, right in front of me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll show you how to adjust it.  What’s your name?”

“Helen.”

“Where are you from?”

“Middletown.”

“Okay Middletown, hop on.”

Well… how did it end?   After 50 minutes of cycle time, I had a sore butt and a burning sense of victory.   I thanked Tyrone when it was over, and despite my embarrassment, when over the loud pulsing music I heard Tyrone call out “How you doing Middletown?!”  I have conquered the spinning class.

Yesterday, after my sore “bike butt” was feeling better I showed up again.  But this time there was no Tyrone.   I know I didn’t imagine it because on the class list that is taped on the door of the spinning room,  in the space where it should say Nancy, Cyclezone 2pm.   It says, TyroneZone and nothing more.   He’s not listed as a regular teacher anywhere on the schedule.  I know that I could ask at the front desk, but for now I’m just going to think of him as my guardian exercise angel because I really could use a little magic if I’m going to make  Kinetic Sand out of GAK.

 

 

This morning while stopped at a traffic light I watched a mom on a rant. It was my neighbor actually, who is a great mom to a great kid, most of the time. She was clearly annoyed with her daughter, whose gaze went everywhere except to her mother’s face. I could feel the push and pull between the two of them; the mother talking and talking without pause for her daughter to speak, and the girl, waiting for a chance to defend herself but relenting to one long sigh that went nicely with her rolling eyes. It was a clear case of the mother needing to be heard verses the girl wishing mother would just shut up. Of course it’s possible, even likely that the girl was thinking about lunch with her friends, or about a boy. I’m pretty sure she burst from the car as soon as they pulled up in front of the school and she didn’t look back, except to glare. But more importantly she won’t remember a single thing that was said in the car.   Of this I am certain.

The first thing I did when the mom/daughter duo passed by me at the traffic light was smile, happy it wasn’t me. It could have been, but it wasn’t, at least not this morning. I only had a 15 second glimpse of the scene in the minivan, the mom’s hand waving in the air, her unpainted face stuck in a grimace, a mom who’d had her fill of back talk and excuses, of lousy attitudes and empty promises from her teen. And the teenager, whose body was in the car and whose mind was a million miles away.  I get it.

The fight is exhausting.

We give them unsolicited advice. We ask what they’re up to when we already know.    We make punishments ten times larger than the offense calls for, and then when we’re too weary to follow through with the consequences, we grant them amnesty “this one time.”   Is it possible that we make them as crazy as they make us?

If there were a job posted that listed the qualifications, expectations, consequences, and pay of a mom, nobody would interview. You’d have to be crazy to take that position! But maybe that’s just it. Crazy. Yes, it is crazy to expect that their agenda, at 16 years old, could even remotely match ours. It is crazy to think that she could understand how badly I want her to mature into a decent, loving and lovable human, one who makes good choices and contributes well to society. And, it is crazy to think that I can remember high school the way she sees it today. It’s all a little nutty.

So if we are crazy, that explains the scene in the van right?  Maybe. But here’s what I also know.   The same arm that I saw waving like mad as their minivan passed my car this morning is the same arm that  will hold the girl from harms way at any cost, and that same grimacing face spewing ultimatums in the car is the same face that will say “I love you, even when you make me crazy, I love you.”

So if you lose your cool once in a while, if you know a mom who goes a little bonkers from time to time, or if you look in a minivan at the school drop off and see a mom on a rant, rest assured that this is because crazy is part of the job description.

Let’s face it; you wouldn’t get the job any other way.