happiness

The Perfect Vacation & Passwords

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

can't remember passwords. mapThis, I must say, is a GREAT feeling: returning to work from vacation and not being able to remember my password.  When this happens, I know that I truly got away from my day-to-day stuff.

Vacation.  You’re able to get away from work and you have the opportunity to renew, recharge, and re-invigorate your senses, your inner calm, and your ideals.  You’re able to ignore the chorus of shoulds and woulds and coulds that dog your work days and you relax into moments of Just Now.

Vacation is over and you come back to work, sit down in front of your computer  and . . . you can’t remember your password.  And it feels good — even though you have a mild concern about what is happening to your mind.  Those letters and digits that you have typed in day after day while on auto-pilot have simply vanished from your memory.  You get the feeling that you went a lot farther on your tirp than you actually did.

Has this happened to you?

Life is just so pleasantly full when you have been allowed to let your mind and heart go to that place that doesn’t require dashing off to work, grocery shopping on the way home, cooking a quick meal, and then catching up on chores around the house so you aren’t completely inundated once you get a day off.

It strikes me that I want to create more  Vacation Moments in my day to day.  Be more mindful about “making time” to do fun stuff that reminds me that my life is good and that there is time to do fun stuff.  [I realize that this is not an extremely ingenious notion!]  With all of the reminders to create a heightened awareness of being more mindful, I think we all understand the need for more relaxation . . . more time to just be and less time to just do.

My vacation time travels in cycles.  There have been the Glory Days of having lots of trips and there have been times when any travel has been non-existent.  These days, my travel time is at an all time low.  My solution?  I grab mini-vacation time whenever I can get it, and I thoroughly enjoy the experience.  I don’t have to be on a tropical beach for two weeks to go into my Happy Place (even though that sounds like a LOT of fun!).

And as for passwords, this last December when I returned home from a trip, I did indeed forget the password for opening the computer at work.  Maybe this is not the best litmus test of a great vacation, but it does make me feel blessed that I was able to get outside of my head and inside of my soul.

Life + Movement = Balance

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

bicycle einsteinCan you remember that first time you were actually pedaling, steering, and balancing a bicycle all by yourself?

“Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”  Albert Einstein has had so many wonderful and uplifting quotes attributed to him.  Not only was the man a genius, but he was also very wise.

Life is like riding a bicycle.  If you are riding a bicycle and you stop moving, there’s a good chance that your balance will go all cattywampus and you will fall down. Boom and Ouch.

When it comes to bicycling and balancing, your options are somewhat limited: keep moving, stop moving and fall on the ground, or get off the bicycle completely and start walking.  And when it comes to life, we intuit and believe and know that out life options are not somewhat limited.  In fact, some of us believe that our options are infinite.  But are they?  I’m just wondering aloud here . . . what do you think?   I think that Einstein’s brilliance might be the answer here: Our options stay alive when we stay in balance our Higher Self with the pavement beneath us.

I like the spirit of Einstein’s quote and how he has reduced this simile to its simplest terms: ride or fall.  Keep going or get stuck.  And I do believe that some life changes have necessitated the need to trade in an old ride for a new one.

There are times in my life that I look back on and now can see that parking the bicycle was the best thing I could have done.  After living in a state of stagnancy, falling to the ground numerous times, and feeling the Ouch Factor, I finally came to my senses and parked the bicycle and walked away.  Heck, I didn’t even bother locking it up to a bike stand or a nearby tree because I knew that I was never going to give that bicycle another go.  Let someone else have it!  Some events in life are Good Riddance worthy.  At times like this, it is always good to select a new (and healthy!) set of wheels and ride like the wind off into a new paradigm.

Life, like a bicycle, is the vehicle we are riding.  Our infinite options in life are actually the directions in which we point our front tire.  The secret is to keep riding toward what we know are true directions to our Higher Self.  I have felt my spirit’s unsettling, intuitive nudge when I know that I have been pedaling in the wrong direction, and I have certainly experienced that feeling of What the heck have I done? right before crashing and falling.  Again.  My takeaway?  Patch up any scrapes and get back on the bicycle and find a balance point and keep moving forward.

Can you remember that first time you were actually pedaling a bicycle all by yourself?  It felt so liberating and exhilarating.   There was that split second when you felt your big brother’s hand leave the back of your bike seat and you felt your sense of balance kick into gear.  I so vividly remember this.  I went shooting down the driveway (and thank God that no car was coming up the street!), banked to the left and rode down the street to the cornfield that bordered the cemetery.  (Yes, I grew up in a very weird Midwest town!)

It was that split-second feeling that has stuck with me.  The second when I knew that I was balancing all on my own.  No sibling to steer for me or to keep us upright on two wheels when I was bumming a tandem ride on a back fender.  Just me, my hand-me-down sky-blue Schwinn, and the open road.  I rode all afternoon in the relative safety of the cemetery — the roads there being so peaceful.  I found My Balance while I practiced right turns and left turns.  Stopping and getting started again.  I arrived home feeling triumphant.  Liberated, actually.  I had discovered my independence.  My Movement.

Yup.  Einstein had it right.  Movement and Balance are key.  And let’s not forget Risk with a capital R.  It takes a lot of guts some days to take a deep breath and sail down the driveway, not knowing if you are going to keep riding or if you are going to crash to the pavement.  I believe that we all crave that feeling of Triumphant Balance in our days.  That feeling deep inside that tells us we are doing life justice with the right amount of movement and balance.

Today?  I am going to get back up on my Bicycle and ride like the wind.  There is no cemetery down the road from where I now live, but I am going to head there in my mind.  Back to that ultra-satisfying feeling of Balance and Movement.

Re-writing Your Stuck Spot

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment
car stuck in snow

This looks so miserable!

I was listening to a meditation recording of Deepak Chopra’s the other night.  Deepak said one thing that caused me to stop the recording, rewind, replay, and rewind it again.  He was talking about how our stuck spots in our lives are revealed by repetitive thoughts, feelings, and statements.  In other words, if you find yourself complaining or talking about the same thing over and over, the chances are this is one of your stuck spots.

tuning fork IIThis truly struck a chord of sublime resonance with me.  I felt completely busted — in a good way.  It made me realize that rather than ignore or abolish these stuck spots in my life, maybe it was time to use them, like throwing down kitty litter behind a spinning tire in the snow, to gain some new traction: in other words, re-write my Repetitive (and oftentimes boring) Statements into Rev-Up Statements.

I next decided that it was time for a little qualitative research of my personal gripes.  I created a journal chart so that I could really look at what is going on.  Every time I talked to a friend or family member or even a co-worker and heard myself complaining about the same old-same old, I wrote the topic down in one of the boxes on the left.  In some boxes, I wrote down what I said verbatim.  Other topics were such a random rant, I summarized the general idea.

My epiphany is two fold: The Good News is that I am not a totally-chronic complainer.  Whew!  Yay for not being an incessant whiner!   The Bad News?  I have some serious and consistent Stuck Spots that are definitely holding me back from feeling fulfilled, happy, and fruitful.

spinning-top-1312042_960_720Next, I re-wrote my rants with a positive spin that was designed to get me up and going again.  No more Stuck Spots!  Putting the positive spin on things required ACTION on my part.  I had to visualize and implement alternatives to just spinning into a deeper and messier rut.  The great news is that I felt empowered by my own personal recognition of This isn’t good anymore.  I want different.  I caught myself and verbally stopped myself from launching into Rant Mode.  It felt great!  And I am guessing that my friends and family think that it is pretty nice, too!  There is nothing like a broken record to put someone to sleep.  It generates white noise that blocks a lively conversation exchange from taking place.  Friends and family, I am trying to exercise new awareness!

With the ongoing research, I have been Paying Attention and there are definitely a few topics that are still holding me a wee bit stuck.  Now?  Rather than ignore them or stuff them into some spiritual drawer or closet, I am airing them out, hanging them on the wall, and slapping a new coat of paint on them.

I realized: Why not?  I have learned that it does no good to ignore stuck spots or to bury them or to walk away from them as if they don’t really matter.  To do so only invites passive-aggressive moments into my relationships — which then only serve to create newer and deeper and stuck-er Stuck Spots.  Why not call them out, view them, and like the grand master painters, slap some new paint over the top and create something new and beautiful?  That’s the beauty of creating a masterpiece.  Sometimes they are considered to be even more valuable when there are hidden paintings beneath the one that we can see.

vintage-binocularsThe great part?  This process works!  I have been catching myself as I spin myself deeper into some repetitive statement . . . and I have been stopping myself right there.

Let’s take the topic of work for an example.  Let’s say that you don’t feel appreciated at work.  You have been ignored for two promotions and your boss is utterly ineffective — late, sloppy, and unmotivated.  He doesn’t take care of emails and he is lousy at following through on decisions — often leaving you hanging with your projects that have looming deadlines.  You have complained, griped, and kvetched about this to your friends, your family, and even your dog.

Why not re-write this stuck spot?  Be creative.  There are so many things that we can do when we feel stuck.

  1. Think about one nice trait about your dog the next time your boss does something that drives you batty.  (Silly, I know . . . but the thought of my dog always makes me happy!)
  2. Bring your resume up to speed.  Start shopping it online and to associates.
  3. Laugh.  It truly doeth good like a medicine.
  4. Watch a cute youtube video.
  5. Offer to take on more responsibility at work AND, at the same time ask your boss for a raise.  It can’t hurt to ask.
  6. Put a pencil horizontally between your upper and lower teeth.  Research has shown that by imitating a smile, the Smile Muscles release the same good stuff to your brain.  Try it  . . . it works!
  7. Write one positive affirmation in the present tense and tape it on the wall where you can readily see it.
  8. Go for a super quick walk around the building.  Movement helps.
  9. Close the door on your office (or even the bathroom stall) and do an insanely goofy happy dance.  I guarantee you will crack up.Take yourself out after work.  Go for a beverage of some kind and get out your laptop and google baseball stats, fashion advice, new employment sites . . . your choice!
  10. And . . . click on the heart-warming and life-changing aqua-blue link below for your free download of today’s journal prompt: “Your Stuck Spot.”  Happy journaling!

Your Stuck Spot. journal prompt

Brian-Tracy-Quote

quotesgram.com

 

Your Happiness Criteria: What do you need to raise your Happiness Quotient?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Albert Einstein wrote, “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

Being one who enjoys clutter and chaos while in the throes of creativity, I respect Einstein’s answer very much.   The simplicity of his words speaks to me and inspires me to take a moment to reflect. What does a man need to be happy?

There is a tremendous amount of research being done on happiness, attitude, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness.  It is amazing what is being discovered about how important our Happiness Factor is in our lives.  But what is your Happiness Quotient?  What have you done lately to increase your HQ?

We try to define or measure our sense of success using several different factors, but what is it in your life that critically determines your sense of long-term satisfaction and self-fulfillment?

Does being happy require you to take phenomenal risks in order for you to feel alive and active on your pathway to success?  Or can living a happy life be more analytical or more structured than this?  Can you structure happiness into your life?

Being one who has lived life through radically-different career changes, lifestyles, and academic pursuits, I sometimes find myself at the end of the day wondering where I am going next.  What is the new plan?  What’s next?  What do I want to study now?  Which new instrument do I want to learn how to play?  Which novel should I work on today?  With all of this spontaneity and creativity that governs my days, I sometimes experience a let-down.  When I am skipping a beat, doubt can settle in.  I hear a certain quote by Lewis Carroll playing a haunting melody in my soul: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

Well, life is not all about career success and job titles and dollar bills and tropical vacations.  There are many dimensions in life that play a large role in our personal assessment of success.  Our relationships, our spiritual life, our sense of growing and contributing, our personal achievements that we share with others – all play a vital role in our happiness factor.

What makes you happy?  What is key in your life that leads to your happiness?  I once read a great article on “Happiness Criteria” which steered me away from my modus operandi of spontaneously and serendipitous-ly (and what can sometimes feel to be senselessly) seeking happiness.  While there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of this, the thought of creating a criteria for success and happiness gave me pause and inspired some more concerted thinking and action with a focus on what generates happiness in my life and on what happiness means to me today.

In other words, what am I doing to raise my Happiness Quotient (HQ)?

One thought: make a list of Happiness Criteria that critically determine your HQ.

For example . . .

Some things that popped up for me, in no particular order of priority, are

  1. A flexible schedule
  2. Can bring my dog to work
  3. Time for travel
  4. Creative expression in my work
  5. Helping others to grow and to create solutions
  6. Time to exercise
  7. Time for loved ones
  8. Great pay

As you can well imagine, everyone’s list is going to read quite uniquely.  I once asked a group of students how many hours they would want to work in their ideal work week.  I was simply stunned by the number of students who wrote “40 hours” as their answer.  They asked me what my ideal work week was, and I told them “8 – 12 hours.”  They laughed and thought I was joking, but . . . I wasn’t.  My happiness criteria demands that I have time to volunteer, create, exercise, dance, be with my family and friends, etc.  Have I worked 40 hours a week?  Yes.  Was I happy?  Yes.  Would I be happier if I worked my 8 – 12 hours?  YES!

And how many of your criteria are non-negotiable?

For example, having a flexible schedule is non-negotiable to my happiness, but being able to bring my dog to work is negotiable.  If my schedule is flexible enough, there will be enough companionship time at the park and on the trails with my dog.

 

Click on the aqua-blue link below to download your free journal prompt: Your Happiness Criteria.  This prompt has some fun and revealing questions about you and how you choose to be happy and to implement happiness criteria in order to raise your Happiness Quotient (HQ).

Happiness Criteria. journal prompt

What do you think?  Has listing your Happiness Criteria helped you to focus on what is important to you?   On what makes you feel happy?  For some of us, these are not simple questions to answer; still, in my heart, I believe that the answers are vivid and clear.  My Higher Self knows what contributes to my happiness.  Taking time to think on these things and to let my intuition rule inspires me to grow in new directions.  To stay open to coincidence.  To appreciate the people in my life who want me to grow.  To appreciate the joy in laughter.

For all of this, I feel deep appreciation.toaster oven

 

 

 

 

The Meaning in the Count: Making Life a Noncount Noun

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

IMG_3357Numbers.

When I really stop to think, my Conscious Day is spent counting.  It starts out with counting and it ends with counting.  Minutes left on my snooze alarm.  Pounds on the bathroom scale.  Dollars in my checking account.  Minutes before I have to leave for work.  Pages completed on my writing project.  Calories.  Fat grams.  Minutes.  Hours.  Shots of coffee.  Pieces of toast.  Am I the only one who is consumed with and by counting?

Counting and measuring and weighing.  Reality dictates that I take care of my health and that I maintain a healthy weight.  That I pay my bills on time.  That I be punctual at work. That I move my dream project forward.  That I hold myself to some level of accountability concerning my food choices.  That I caffeine-ate fully and properly each morning.  That I try to stay under the speed limit when I am running late for work.  That I care about things in life that involve the measuring and weighing by number.

I know me.  Without counting, life would be a free-for-all that does not allow for any accountability to myself or to others.  While I think on this, I search for the value, the meaning in the count.  We have all wrestled with the concept of weighing quality over quantity.  But even here . . . we are still measuring and weighing the benefits.  We are taught to think that quality is more important than quantity.  But still.  Like the little girl that would rather have five pennies over one nickel, there are areas in my life where I tend to shoot for quantity.

Quantity in my hand.  Quality of the moment.  Where is the Real Value in the midst of the day and its ticking clock?  Daily, I put my day on pause for five minutes of meditation.  Are these five minutes worth more than five minutes spent watching silly videos on youtube? Research tells me that, yes, meditation is so good for us on so many levels.  And I will continue to take those five to reset my inner self.  But why do we judge ourselves so harshly when we aren’t doing that which is “good for us”?  Yes, I know that I can lose that final ten pounds, but is it worth beating myself up each time I get on the scale?  Am I really going to care, one way or the other, once I hit that Maui beach in December?  After all, it’s difficult to be hard on yourself when you are living in paradise.

But being a linguist, I very much like the semantics that extend beyond grammatical agreements.  For example, we English speakers agree to add the letter -s to most nouns to make them plural.  Lest we get into the exceptions such as person/people, tooth/teeth, mouse/mice, and ox/oxen, we can agree that adding the letter -s to a noun will signify that we dealing with the Concept of More Than One.

And then there are those tricky count and noncount nouns and their plural forms or lack therein.  According to the Purdue OWL, The Basic Rules for count and noncount nouns are as follows:

A count noun is one that can be expressed in plural form, usually with an “s.” For example, “cat—cats,” “season—seasons,” “student—students.” A noncount noun is one that usually cannot be expressed in a plural form. For example, “milk,” “water,” “air,” “money,” “food.” Usually, you can’t say, ‘He had many moneys’ . . . 

Count nouns refer to things that exist as separate and distinct individual units. They usually refer to what can be perceived by the senses.  Noncount nouns refer to things that can’t be counted because they are thought of as wholes that can’t be cut into parts. They often refer to abstractions and occasionally have a collective meaning. 

best when freshThere is simply so much cool stuff going on there.  Quantity vs. quality.  Count vs. noncount.   We think of a life — a count noun — and we count the number of lives on the planet.  But when we think of our our own life?    We think “in terms of wholes that can’t be cut up into pieces.”  It’s one whole life.   It’s my life!  And like grass, rice, and money . . . we don’t actually cut our own life up into pieces . . . even when we think in terms of annual events such as birthdays and anniversaries.  It’s all one big whole that we truly prefer not to relegate to the Noun Category of Count.  We want to make it count in the ways that are important . . . not in some grammatical or statistical way.

There is counting . . . and then there is making life count.  As I go through the days and I count and I measure the pluralizations that I prioritize . . . I wonder.  I wonder about the importance of quotas at work and pounds on the scale and hits on my website.  I wonder about making my life count.  So much to wonder about.  Thank God that wonder is a verb in this context.  Otherwise, I would be inclined to start counting the many wonders in the world around me.

IMG_2800My advice to self:  Just live and give it your best in the moment.  You’ve got this.  While I appreciate the concepts of mindfulness and how important it is to be aware and to be positive, there is more.  There is life as a noncount noun.  It’s okay to count the little things as long as I remember the bigger picture.  And sometimes it is so hard to keep sight of this enormous, huge, ginormous Universe of which I am but a tiny speck.

I think I answered my own Life Question About Counting.  Stop counting.  And when I do count — which I will surely continue to do — I will try to do so with wild abandon and appreciation for the abundance within life’s “separate and distinct individual units.”

Turning a Noun into a Verb

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

IMG_3390Lest this become a lesson in the grammatical usage of gerunds and participles, I believe that there is more to this way of thinking: passion = noun –> verb.  As in so many components of life and relationships, there is a heck of a lot of semantics attached to the way we speak, think, and act.

This might be a matter best left to a linguistical convention . . . but still. When a kind-of-weird thought speaks, I listen. And, within this thought, I found myself searching for some hidden meanings of life that go beyond the eight parts of speech.

What I discovered is that it is easy for me to think of a verb — an action or a state of being — that I associate with my passions, interests, and hobbies . . . and most of them are gerund-nouns: writing, playing mandolin, reading, gardening, painting, etc.  And I can just as easily use these gerunds as participle verbs: I have been playing the mandolin for many years.  I am writing in my office right now.  This sort of thing.  Gerund/verb: writing/writing.

I realized that it is easier for me to think of the verb part — the doing or the being part — and harder to think of the noun part — the “thing” inside of me that drives me to pursue the interests that require no conscious thought . . . I simply do them because . . . I don’t exactly know.

It  is almost as if there is an iconic part — a noun or a symbol or a talisman factor — within us that inspires us to skateboard or ski or play trombone or get a degree in chemistry or write or play roller derby or get a pilot’s license or cut and paste paper into beautiful creations.  I am thinking that some thing that can’t really be put into any part of speech within me that calls me to action.  What do you think?

What’s your noun?  Your icon?  _______________

Please, share your noun with the rest of us.

My noun: typewriter

typewriter.jpg

 

Allen Wrenches & Due Diligence

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments
moving

Whew. Almost done!

It has been a few weeks since moving in to my new home, so I decided to drag out the last of the last and unpack some of the final boxes that have been cluttering the living room.  I set a goal.  I was determined not to stop my efforts until at least three of the offending boxes were distributed and emptied.

These remaining boxes are those that are filled with the unsorted and the unwanted semi-useful things you discover you have at the end of any move . . . things like salsa jars of nails and screws, odd assortments of pens, paper clips, and rubber bands, virgin flat sponges awaiting the magical release of hydration.  Headsets that may or may not function, mystery remote controls, loose buttons, loose batteries that might work so you best keep them.  Plastic cutlery, paper doilies for making Valentines, a voice recorder with no corresponding USB cord, candles, napkin rings.  And those dratted twist ties.  Why do we save so damn many twist ties?

You know the mix.  Stuff that doesn’t really “go with” any of the other “themed” boxes at the tail end of a move.  Stuff that we call “junk” but feel compelled to move with us. Stuff that we throw into boxes as the carpet cleaner is arriving, all while chanting to self, I will survive this move!

IMG_2812

And so it begins . . .

After such an epic move, three boxes isn’t so much.  Victory would be mine today.  I started with Box #1.  But lo.  Midway down in the box I found an unassembled Desktop Foosball Table in its glossy unopened box.  What a waste to not be having fun with this, I thought.  This foosball table was a gift from someone who loves me, who knows how I love foosball, who wants me to have fun in life.  I decided that it was time, right then and there, to do something that I never do: assemble something on the spot. By myself.  Drop everything and just do it.  My unpacking screeched to a stop.  It was time to assemble.

I am one of those personality types who does not read directions.  When I get a new phone or fancy appliance, I conscientiously file its new manual neatly with the others from various small and large appliances — in the event of dysfunctional emergency.

IMG_2810

Yikes!  There are a lot of pieces!

Truth, I think I am directions-phobic.  I know that it must sound weird, but when I start reading directions, I stress.  My stomach knots up, and I feel panic-y.  Why?  I don’t know. I have the native intelligence to read and comprehend the required steps.  Still, it feels more intuitive for me to find my way, experientially so, than by reading that tiny, tiny print in the directions.

I remember the towel bar that I put up in the bathroom.  I was so proud of the initial efforts: buying it at the harware store.  I borrowed a drill from a colleague and found a level in the garage.  I then spent untold perfection-istic algebraic minutes trying to perfectly level the bar by performing algebraic feats of ratios, circumferences, and order of operations . . . only to find, when cleaning up my mess, that there were clear directions in the box with a handy-dandy paper guide that you tape to the wall — which would have made everything so much easier in the leveling process.

Instead, I solved my equations, measured, leveled, and drilled.  I persevered.  Three new and unnecessary holes dotting the wall later, the bar was finally mounted . . . quite level actually . . . but unfortunately with clean up that required a session of spackling, sanding, and painting.  Sometimes it’s not easy being green.

This is what I learned from my DIY foosball table assembly:

  1. Before undertaking any project of this magnitude, find your reading glasses.
  2. Organize your resources. If the directions say that you are going to need a flathead screwdriver, track down the screwdriver before you begin.
  3. Don’t be intimidated by technical terms like “Allen wrench.” Google is my friend.
  4. IMG_2811

    All of the necessary hardware

    Lay your hardware out in an organized fashion. Try not to lose or squander resources.

  5. Appreciate clairvoyant hardware-packaging people who include one extra washer and one extra tiny screw. (See #4.)
  6. Rely on previous experience. Washers are provided for a reason.
  7. Some steps are best done collaboratively. It does no good to screw one of four screws in really tightly and then have to back it off to fit the others.
  8. Rely on finished-product pictures that are provided. Foosball is about winning.  Situating all red team members on the defensive end of the playing field creates no offense to win.
  9. Too much zeal during assembly can result in split and broken pieces.
  10. When all 4 pieces split upon application, it might not be about your zeal. It might be about a lesser-quality product. (See #9.)
  11. It’s okay not to ask for help.
  12. You can break a sweat using an Allen wrench.
  13. Just because you don’t ask for help and you strip a screw head doesn’t mean that you are a bad person. (See #11 & #12.)
  14. Having opposable thumbs is fun and highly advantageous.
  15. Being determined is rewarding.
IMG_2813

Nice, huh?

Why I feel so accomplished after assembling a miniature foosball table all by myself is a bit of mystery to me.  And a bit comical.  I think it must have more to do with “finishing something” with only a set of directions and my wits than it does with conquering assembly with an Allen wrench – my new favorite tool, by the way.

I also feel like its assembly honored my loved one who gave it to me.  I must write her a note and thank her for the foosball fun.  Thanks, AW!

The little lesson from this: I can slow down and manage the steps required to meet my end goals.  Life isn’t all about speed.  I think I am intimidated by, and sometimes disappointed in, my own lack of follow-through at times.  I might speed across the finish line, but how many washers, screws, and essential pieces do I deem unnecessary and then discard or lose along the way?

As I was cleaning up my post-assembly mess, I tossed the Allen wrench into the Rubbermaid catch-all under the laundry room sink.  I paused.  And fished it back out.  It is now on my desk to serve as a reminder that I’ve got this.  I can survive taking the time to read directions, even if it makes my stomach wrench (no pun intended.)

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Let’s play!

Am I happy with the results of my efforts?  Yes.  Did I learn something?  Very much yes.  The Boxes of the Unsorted in my living room still beckon to me.  I am now wondering what other lessons await my due diligence.  I will tuck my Allen wrench talisman into my back pocket for luck and will persevere until all is sorted and stored.  Life is good. I’ve got this!

What’s one nice thing a stranger has done for you?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

What’s the nicest thing a total stranger has done for you?  So many people have done so many nice things for me in my life.  Hmmm . . . I am going to focus on the time frame of Lately to answer this question.

Today I received a reminder email, indicating that I was up against a deadline to take care some financial business.  It involved status verification, updated info, and the like, and I have to be honest and say that this is the sort of stuff that intimidates the heck out of me. Thoroughly disliking the dreaded consequences of unnecessary stress due to the linking of procrastination with deadlines, I went online to take care of it.  I entered the various user names and passwords and opened the various web pages.  One page led to another, and I was beginning to feel befuddled.  Ugh.  All of these confounding questions kept popping up at me from my computer screen — questions for which I knew not the answers.  What to do?

It’s true.  I am form-a-phobic.  If any of you out there understand this, you will know exactly what I mean when I panicked when I saw all of the little boxes to type information into and the little circles for clicking Yes or No.  I saw dollar signs and address requests and more deadlines, and I deferred to my general go-to: I picked up the phone and dialed and prayed for a kind person who would be willing to hold my hand through the entire procedure.

After enunciating Representative for the fourth time, I was transferred to the proper department.  My anticipated wait time?  One minute.  I wondered, One minute?  Is this for real? Is this karma working back in my direction after helping that tourist on the street yesterday find the nearest shop where she could buy underwear?  [Lest you think that she was a wimpy or inexperienced traveler — Just go to the nearest Target, right? — she needed to compensate for her luggage having been lost . . . and what with the shopping options on our lovely little island being quite limited, she was feeling quite challenged in the Undies Procurement Department.]

The minute passed and, sure enough, the absolute nicest representative picked up the phone, established that I was indeed a bonafide account holder, and away we went into Formsville.  I explained to her that, although I graduated from college with honors, I was incapable of passing a multiple-choice test with a passing grade.  I told her that I couldn’t figure out which way to go with the various flow charts that were swimming before me on the screen and asked if she could help me navigate the scary waters.

As I said, she was just so nice to me.  I could hear the smile in her voice and the patience in her choice of words.  Ten minutes later, I had all of the boxes filled and all was clear as to what my next step was.  She told me exactly what to write on the required documentation and to what address it should be mailed.

When it was all done, I felt so happy that I had conquered this chore four weeks ahead of the deadline.  Now?  All I have to do is follow up with a call in about 10 days to ensure that the information arrived at its destination.  I told her how much I appreciated her kindness and that she was very good at her job.  Every now and then we get super lucky when we say the word Representative.  Today was one of those days.

People can be very kind, and I appreciate this representative’s kind demeanor.  Life.  It’s not that hard to offer each other a helping hand.  Be it in the area of underwear consumerism or financial forms, it doesn’t cost us that much more to extend some niceness into the mix.  After my lovely encounter today, I am greatly inspired to extend this same kindness to the next person who asks for some help from me.

How about you?

What’s one nice thing that a stranger has done for you?

[ . . . and one last question . . . Why do we say complete stranger or total stranger?]