Why do we care?

The clocks go back tonight, so time is on my mind.

I wrote recently about minutae. Why do we care so much about minutae? For example, I have a nature strip and I care about how it looks. I cut it with shears (very tiring, but satisfying) and have investigated replacing it with creeping thyme or just killing the current 'grass' (aka 'weeds') and installing some instant lawn. My preferred variety is Santa Ana in case you were wondering. Add up researching lawn mowers and lawn mowing substitutes, lawn care, planting options etc and I suspect I've given a week of my life to this issue over the past six months or so.

Why is it so? Why do I care? I doubt it adds to my property values. If I were selling or renting I'd pay a Jim's Mowing man to deal with it and that would be the end of it. I don't worry about the neighbors: it's not that kind of area, and I just don't much care what they think. No visitor has ever remarked upon the state of my nature strip.

In the end, I think I like grass and this is the only patch of it that falls under my sphere of control. Amateur psychologists may find other reasons why.

There are many less obvious tasks we all do because we care - although why we care is a mystery when you consider it consciously. I suggest we waste a little more time investigating why we care. It may just be a matter of out-of-date programming, with the potential to save us minutes, hours, days, weeks and even - eventually - years. Time we can spend on something or someone we really care about.

An adventurous life

Recently, someone told me I have had an adventurous and eventful life. The comment was an aside, partly prompted by the sort of dinner party conversation, where it is appropriate to edit out the mundane bits. It is also largely a matter of the attitude one brings to one's life. I am immensely flattered by this comment, even while I was nonplussed too.

All lives are adventurous and eventful. They can't be anything but: events occur in life, moment by moment, and none of us know what our eventual fate will be, or even what is going to happen in the next minute, let alone the next year. Yet we don't always approach our life as if this was true.

While adventures are not always comfortable or even pleasurable, they are enlarging experiences which are fully lived. We are aware that we are alive when we have an adventure.

So lunch with a friend can be an adventure. Lunch alone can be an adventure. Lunch in a new location can be an adventure. Lunch in a favourite spot can be an adventure. Or any of the above can be a mundane footnote in a day like any other.

Do you approach your life as an adventure? What would need to change for you to do so? What would change if you did?

This is post 7 of 365 posts in 365 days.

Which problem are you solving?

In a book about permaculture, I once read a story of a gardener who was being driven to distraction by the slugs & snails eating his crop.  He tried everything he could think of, and then went to his mentor in despair.  The mentor looked carefully around at his garden, then said: "Your problem is not an oversupply of snails, its an under-supply of ducks".  The gardener bought a couple of ducks, and they ate the snails and slugs (and incidentally, fertilized the garden). The problem was solved, but only when the correct problem was identified.

Lately, I have been charmed – and humbled – by the many opportunities life affords us, of checking our assumptions about what the problem is.

Is the problem that you're being difficult? Or is that I'm being controlling?

Is the problem that other people won't give me what I need? Or is the problem that I don't action on my own behalf?

Is the problem that other people can be so inconsiderate? Or is the problem that I am not maintaining my own boundaries, and saying "No" when appropriate?

Is the problem that I don't have "enough" money? Or is the problem that I resist following my dreams due to false or outdated information and beliefs?

Is the problem that everyone is blaming me for what went wrong? Or is the problem that I secretly feel guilty, and so I'm hearing the feedback as negative and blaming?

There's a knack to seeing what is going on from a different angle, but its one we can all develop.  I once watched a child trying to write, resting their notebook on the seat of a chair.  "This pen doesn't work!" she cried.  I looked closely at what she was doing, and said, "The pen is fine, your book has slipped out and is hanging off the end of the chair seat, and so the pen hasn't got anything to push against."  I slid the book back on the chair, and this time the pen worked.  I wonder how many pens that child would have gone through, before she saw what was really going on?  Chances are, the more times the pen "didn't work", the more frustrated she would be.  So now whenever I get really frustrated by a problem, I try to stop myself and ask: 

"What am I not seeing here?"  Am I seeing too many slugs, or not enough ducks?  Am I seeing a broken pen, or a bad writing surface?

Think about a problem in your life that frustrates you:  could there be something you are not seeing?

Paying Attention

The gift of attention is a precious gift.  

We all enjoy being with someone who "gets" us, who is easy to talk to because we know they are really listening, who knows all our faults and likes us faulty as we are. Such people seem to see us for who we *really* are.  

Love without attention is like planting a garden and then forgetting to water it.  

We also know the perils of too much of the wrong sort of attention.  There is an attention that sees without joy: that always sees our flaws, our mishaps and the bits that could do with some improving.  It might love us in spite of our faults, but it almost feels like we're loved out of duty, and in spite of our good points too.

Love with too much negative attention is like having a garden, but only seeing the weeds - and even when the garden is weeded and perfect, bewailing the fact that the weeds will just come back!

So how do we develop the right sort of attention?  How do we get better at noticing?

There are two games I like to use.  The first one is a well-known concept of Mindfulness and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.  I just named it and turned it into a game. The second game I came up with all on my lonesome.  

Bear in mind, I'm not clinically trained, I'm just an opinionated childless woman, so use these games at your own risk.

Game One - Notice, Notice, Notice

This game, based on Mindfulness, is about direct experience.  Its allowing ourselves to be open to what is happening, to just notice it and try not to understand, judge or change it.  This takes practice.  

In relation to other people, it is usually more helpful to focus on the person rather than on what you're feeling yourself.  The next time you're with a loved one - a partner, parent, child or friend - spend some time just noticing everything you can about them.  (But don't choose a moment when the other person is trying to tell you something important, or not until you've had lots of practice...)

Use all your senses to Notice, Notice, Notice - what do you see?  what do you hear? what do you smell? what do you feel? and (if appropriate), what do you taste?  

Spend some time going into lots of detail.  If you see that your friend's hair is brown, what colour brown? Is it all one shade? What is its texture? Does it look different from the last time you saw it? Has she had a haircut?

As you focus on the other person, you'll probably get caught up in your own feelings about that person.  Note the feeling that arises in you, but get back to the actual experience of the other person.  So, if you're noticing your baby's soft blond hair, and thinking of how much you love to stroke it, that's fine, but move back to noticing your baby rather than staying with your feelings about your baby.

Game Two - Opinion Origami

The second is to think of opinions (or even judgements) you have about someone, and try to unfold how you came by them, then try to fold them up in a different pattern (hence origami). This works better with positive or neutral opinions than negative ones - negative opinions don't need reinforcing and you probably won't change them.

For example, you might feel that your niece (or brother/sister/nephew/friend) is keen on football.  That may be positive or neutral.  Ask yourself: why do you feel that?  Is it because she often wears team-branded clothing? Is it because she carries football swap cards everywhere?  It is because she talks to you almost exclusively about football when you meet?  

Try to include as much detail as possible.  You might consider how her eyes light up when you bought her a set of football swap cards as a treat.  Or how her voice gets a note of excitement when she is telling you about how she did a deal with a school friend for a rare card last week.

You will end up with a lot of information.  Now your job is to put that information together in a different way, so you end up with an alternative opinion about your niece. (The alternative opinion may or may not be true, that's not important.  It is important that you consider it.)

Maybe your niece is not interested in football, per se, just in football swap cards.  Swap cards may be the latest trend at her school.  The team-branded clothing may be a gift, or perhaps they're hand-me-downs.  Or perhaps she wears them for protective colouration, because they make life at school easier.  Perhaps she wears them to annoy her brother who supports a different team.  Perhaps she talks to you about football because that's what YOU are interested in, and she doesn't know what else to talk to you about.

At the end of Opinion Origami, you may not change your opinion, but isn't your experience of your niece richer?  You've called up memories that are visual, aural and tactile.  The next time you meet her, you're likely to regard her with a kind of wondering curiosity - partly you're testing out your opinions, and partly she is just more interesting now you've spent some quality attention on her!

This game also works well on strangers on public transport, or people at cocktail parties.  In which case I call it the Sherlock Holmes game.

Try one or both of these games this week - and do let me know how it went for you!

Driven to Distraction?

Here's a link to a lovely article about the creative process - and indirectly about time management.

Article: Driven by Distraction

While I am (obviously) childless, I was moved and inspired by this piece.

A book by the author will be out in September, published by Melbourne University Press.