Photo by fdecomite
By the end of the first hour at the office, I was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t like it very much. Not that anything was particularly any weightier than usual. It was just the annoying little time and energy consumers that plague most work days and add unnecessary stress. Most of them are chores that have to be taken care of and only I can take care of them. No choices there. So how could I make it better or was I just damned to a miserable day? You know what? I didn’t want a miserable day. There had to be some way of making it better—besides berating myself for not using enough positive thinking.
That’s when I began to catalog things that could make the day better. Many of them were things I didn’t have any control over, though I listed those, too, because you never know what might show up or bring things into your control unexpectedly. The surprising thing was how much of my day I actually did have control over and could “make better” without the syrupy nature of so many people who espouse positive thinking. The terminology of “what would make it better” broke through the mandate of a disingenuous “if you want a good day, you must think happy thoughts.”
Then again, I love to brainstorm and this method allowed me the chance to take action on my brainstorming.Just to name a few….
1. I started thinking that one way of making the day better would be to get out of the office at lunch. Hmmm, someplace special. And to share some great conversation with a friendly face who would be supportive and free-thinking. Hmmm, and wouldn’t the Thai House be just delish today? So I suggested to Aquarius Girl that we do Thai for lunch. It turned out that she had other plans but she’s rearranging her schedule tomorrow so that we can invade our favorite Thai spot. I found a pleasant alternative to lunch today and now I’m looking forward to a great lunch tomorrow.
2. I thought about how great it would feel to finish up a project I left hanging in July. It’s not one that would take a long time, but I didn’t have a particular number (not hard to find), or a particular name (a little harder to find), verification of two pages of info (basically printing two pages and checking off numbers), and inserting a graphic into the package (available in another file that’s not too hard to find). All the reasons the project hasn’t been done has been because of tiny things that were too much trouble during the summer. So I put all those tiny annoyances in one place to make them easy to wipe out. The project is now finished and I love feeling good about having it out of the way.
3. I looked at the somewhat boring task on my desk, the kind I can do without much thought at all, and wondered how I could make it more exciting without either picking a fight or setting fire to it or having a guy in a loincloth read it aloud to me. I decided that the task was hopeless in terms of adding excitement to it, but that I could definitely make my work environment more pleasant while accomplishing something mindless. I hooked up my iPod to my computer speakers and gave myself a pleasant choice between listening to some of my favorite electronica and a non-fiction audiobook I’ve been wanting to delve into.
By the third item, I was thinking not only of how to make my day better but the next day and the weekend, too. I was thinking of how it would be better if I could have a little bonfire in the back yard under the cool full moon and the only thing stopping me is that I don’t have the fire wood and I can pick that up at the grocery store. And how much better would everything be if I had incense burning in the house with a small stash of candles on the breakfast counter? And how much better it would be if I could move the church rail in the house to the end of the hallway and put my little vision boards there.
Some of these are little things I have control over and can change without anyone else knowing. Some of these are things that I have to ask someone else for their involvement to make it happen. And some, some are entirely up to other people and up to the Universe, but I’ve put it out there to the Universe that it’s something would “make it better,” and that’s the first step in bringing something closer to making my day, whether I do it myself, ask for help, or just let it happen. c Lorna Tedder
