Strong Tea

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of advice to be found on the Internet. We can google for ever for advice about being happy,  parenting, finding a job, quitting your job, buying a car, buying a house, fixing anything and millions of other topics. The one place we rarely look for advice is within ourselves. For people who love to give advice, this can be especially difficult.

I have a friend who was dating a guy who didn’t treat her or her family well. She lives rather far away from me, so I’d never met him at all, but still didn’t like him. When we talked on the phone and she told me how he was treating her I was astonished. This was the kind of woman who would jump into a fight to defend a friend, right or wrong. She’s always got your back and she’s the best kind of friend there is. I asked her what she would do if there was a guy treating me the way her boyfriend was treating her. When she didn’t answer I said, “I know what you would do…you’d break his face.”

It can be a real wake up call to hear your own advice given back to you. Writers and bloggers have to be particularly careful in this department because we put our advice in writing. This makes it easy for someone to call us out on not practicing what we preach. Luckily, I didn’t require someone else to bring to my attention that I had temporarily abandoned my standing on a particular topic. I simply read through my own blog posts and came to the realization that I should start listening to myself a little more.

I’ve been in a bit of a slump. I had some medical problems and I was a little depressed about it. When you’re dealing with something terrifying and life-changing, you can get a little caught up in waiting for test results. I found myself severely off-track. Luckily, the test results came back with good news. It was nothing life-changing, nothing to worry about and I was free to resume my normal life. So where was I going again?

Reading back through my first real post, about getting out of a rut seemed to help. I started with the first few steps and now I’m on a roll again. Just look at my fancy new blog theme! And now I’m back to posting again. There’s also this piece of creative non-fiction that I’ve been working on…hopefully it will make its debut here in the next few weeks.

The lesson here is for us to ask ourselves what advice we would give to someone who is in the same particular situation we are in. If you’re a blogger, read through your own work and see if your previous advice applies to your current situation. If you are lucky enough to be on a roll right now and not in need of any particular advice, please share your secrets. Even if it doesn’t help us now, it may help you later.

Back in February I shared with my readers what my resolutions were for 2009. Instead of having just one resolution, I made 9 and broke them down into sets of 3, each of the sets lasting for 3 months, leaving October – December free for any new resolutions or revisions of the old ones. Here’s my progress so far.

1.       Blog.  My posts have not been all that consistent, I know. But I have made a breakthrough on a fictional piece that I had all but abandoned. I’ve been working on that quite a lot lately. Unfortunately that means something else had to give. I’ve been writing, just not what I was supposed to be writing.

2.       Meet new people. I’ve made a friend and we’ve seen each other a few times now outside of the class we met in. Things are going well and I’m starting to make more friends through her.

3.       Clean house. A few weeks ago, I waged a fierce battle against the dust bunnies of my apartment. The bunnies lost. As did the dirty laundry, dirty dishes, desk clutter and the scary looking Tupperware residing in the back of the fridge. I now spend 15 minutes every day trying to maintain my clean bliss.

The second set of resolutions is to begin next Wednesday. The good news is that some of them have already been started.

4.       Finances. In February I attempted a no spend month. Crash and burn. I tried again in march, but since I had a $100 gift card, I allowed myself to spend that on anything non-essential (outside of a birthday gift for a friend) I have actually done quite well. I gave up going out to lunch for Lent (or at least going out on my own dollar) and I’ve only fudged twice…because I left my lunch bag sitting on the kitchen counter, packed and ready to go. In addition to cutting my splurges, I’m going to cut my cable expense. As soon as the Stanley Cup Playoffs are over, that is. Having stopped watching most television (as per my last post) I really see no need to keep paying an extra $50 for all those channels that I’m just not watching.

5.       Conquer Clutter. During the dust bunny wars, there were a lot of miscellaneous items that found themselves a new homes first in a trash bag, and then in the dumpster in the parking lot. Where their journey takes them from there doesn’t much matter, so long as they don’t find their way back to my apartment. I still have a lot of clutter to part with and at least 2 closets to organize/re-arrange, but a little bit each week is definitely progress.

6.       Exercise. I have started exercising. Mostly this had to do with a pair of pants that I was surprised to find no longer fit me. I began immediate action. I’m tracking what I eat and trying to get 90 minutes of cardio in each week. Being as out of shape as I am, it’s a lot harder than I anticipated but I’m confident that if I follow the plan I have set up, I’ll be ready for my swimsuit and these too-tight pants by June.

I made the decision to make 2009 the year for change in my life. So far, that change seems to be coming along nicely. I admit there are areas that could use a little more attention, but seeing as how I’ve not given up on any of my resolutions yet, I think I’m doing quite well. If you’ve made any resolutions this year, how are you doing with them?

Sometimes when I have a bad day, it can be difficult to see anything in a positive light. I know that when I am worried and tense (especially if it is financially related) I feel like everything I do is somehow an extension of my problem. I think in times like these, it’s important to remember the things we have to be happy about and to be grateful for them.

1.       Someone loves you. You may not have found the love of your life, but your parents, your brother, your kids, even your dog are all blessings and they love you. Enjoy them while you have them. It doesn’t last forever.

2.       You love someone back. Those same people from point 1 are probably the people you not only feel love from, but also towards.

3.       You are getting by. You may have lost your job, you may even have lost your home, but there are places in the world where people can’t get clean water or even a single meal every day, places where people watch their children starve or die of illnesses that are easily treated. A roof over your head (even if it’s not your own roof right now) and a meal on the table is something to be very grateful for.

4.       You are healthy. I know it sounds cliché, but people take their health for granted. Until you’ve been sick, I mean really, really sick, you don’t know how important being healthy is. I spent several years with a heart condition and the restrictions that I lived with and the fear I felt still seem dwarfed by what my cousin endured in the four times he had cancer. There is a huge difference between staying in bed because you don’t feel well and being physically unable to get up, to feed yourself or to spend time with your family and not be able to do anything about it.

5.       Laughter. I know sometimes when times are tough it’s not easy to laugh. The point is that you can, and at some point, you will and it will make you feel better. Think about the last time you were laughing so hard it hurt. Did it matter what else was going on in your life right at that moment or were you totally engrossed in what made you laugh? Laughter is the best medicine, they say.

Remembering these things seems to help me. Do they help you too? What do you have to be happy about right now?