Alignment

Today’s exercise: Realign my focus.

I have decided that I am focusing on all the wrong things these days. In an attempt to alter this, I shall undertake the following exercise: Identify a positive learning experience that has come out of each and every day.

Because I have found myself to possess poor powers of recollection of late (at least in the areas that I WANT to recollect things) I shall only be able to capture one week’s worth of days. Even that will prove to be quite a challenge.

Tuesday, April 29

Well. I’m relatively certain that this is the day that I had an early dinner with Rob at the Hubbard Avenue Diner. I’m almost positive. Following dinner, I’m pretty sure that I went home and did….something….. And then went to candlelight yoga, which turned out to be a lovely, lovely practice. So, a couple of lessons from that night:
1 – There is nothing quite like the ease that is felt when in the company of one who knows you incredibly well, and accepts you completely. There are very, very few people like this in one’s life. Generally you’re either raised together (family) or you marry them. When you are fortunate enough to have such people in your life, you should never forget to put yourself in their presence on a regular basis. It’s therapeutic, all-around.
2 –Allow for the possibility that you are better/stronger/more capable than you believe yourself to me. I distinctly recall feeling as if I did not have the strength for yoga that night. That is, in fact, why Rob and I met for dinner. I had every intention of skipping class. Bizarrely, I found myself in my car, found myself driving my car, and found myself parking in front of the studio without every making the conscious decision to attend class. It ended up being a wonderful practice. My body felt surprisingly strong and it all felt very, very right.

Wednesday, April 30

A rather routine day. I had lunch with a co-worker. After work, I attended a kickboxing class. (This is normally a Thursday night activity but was shifted for social reasons.) Class was REALLY, REALLY hard. After class, made a quick stop at Marshalls and ran into Laura! [Side note: Laura is the ONLY one of my friends that I appear to randomly connect with in various shopping locations, on a semi-regular basis. Weird.]
Lesson: Life has a way of balancing things out. Sure, kickboxing sucked. Quite a lot. It was really hard, and I got really sweaty. However, I am now physically and mentally stronger (Yes, from one class. You should TRY one of those classes.) Also, life aligned in such a manner that I was able to spend time with a friend just when I needed a bit of rejuvenation.

Thursday, May 1

After work, Jennifer and I drove to Monroe Street where Tiffany met us for “Active Women’s Night.” If you’re asking what “Active Women’s Night” is, join the club. We were there, and we’re still confused. My best guess? A ruse to lure innocent women into a store with the hopes of persuading them that they’ll be unable to live a healthy fulfilled life without purchasing vast quantities of the store’s merchandise. Luckily, the company was good and we had a nice dinner.
Lesson: There are times when you’re doing something that could not possibly described as “fun,” but it mysteriously becomes “fun” because you’re with good friends. Had I been with “fake friends,” this would have been a miserable time. Thank heavens I’ve rid my life of those. I think…

Friday, May 2

Well. This was interesting. Met T downtown, went for coffee, walked through a number of gallery-type establishments for “gallery night,” had dinner at Peppino’s.
Lesson: Be open to new experiences and see what comes of it. (I’m still in the “seeing” part of this lesson.)

Saturday, May 3

Farmer’s market with Stacy and Rob, miserable weather. We were PELTED with cold rain and gusty winds. Saturday-type errands – grocery shopping, catching up on emails, napping. Took a quick bike ride to the pet food store, battling fierce winds the entire time, and took the canine out for a bit of a jaunt. Saturday night had dinner plans, but my date did not show. One could describe this as irritating, especially when one considers the fact that one might have stayed home in pajamas and been VERY comfortable.
Lesson: What the fruit, or: Que sera, sera. (Mentally insert accent marks, which I am currently unable to find.)

Sunday, May 4

A beautiful day, to be certain. I went to yoga in the morning, which was a satisfyingly difficult and challenging class. After yoga, came home as I had designated the entire afternoon as “cleaning day.” Was in the process of rearranging my bookshelf when T called to see if I’d like to take a walk. Met T at the nature preserve, walked and talked, went to the Hubbard Avenue Diner. Came home, did turbo-pseudo clean in preparation for Tiffany and Laura’s arrival for dinner. Lovely ladies, lovely meal, after which we walked to the Hubbard Avenue Diner for dessert. [Okay. I KNOW what you’re thinking, but – BELIEVE me – this diner business is an anomaly. I’ve barely even been eating out lately!!!]
Lesson: Life’s little currents are full of pleasure, if you allow yourself to be carried by them. I could have stuck to my plans of devoted housework, but to what end? Tiffany and Laura were not there to admire the spotlessness of my residence, but to enjoy each other’s company, which we did QUITE successfully.

Monday, May 5

Monday was the 21st Anniversary of my new employer, which apparently translates to “big party.” After work I met co-workers at Pedro’s for free food and alcohol. Interestingly, all day long I had been receiving emails promoting “free cab rides” to and from the event. Yikes. Was wondering what kind of place I work for, which I continued to wonder as I saw the “prizes” raffled off. I didn’t even know that tequila was sold by the gallon. As I planned to go to yoga, I did not imbibe. I ducked out early, took care of the kids, and went to yoga. Class was nice.
Lesson: I work with some pretty crazy people. This morning has driven this point home even further. One of the games that we “played” last night involved guessing how many beans were in a jar. First thing this morning, this was posted to our internal WIKI (and yes, the fact that we have an internal WIKI is also an indicator of our collective insanity):

Last night, I used the bean counting contest to test a theory I read about in The Wisdom of Crowds. In the book, the author says that when groups of people guess things like the weight of a cow or the number of jellybeans in a jar, the average of the group guesses will be very close to whatever is being estimated.

The number of beans in the jar last night was 2,310. The group average guess was 1,618.


I think that says it all, don’t you?