While on book tour to Austin, TX to the AAS meeting (completely fun, and a huge boost to my morale!), I picked up a book in the airport called 'The Happiness Project'. It was on the NYT bestseller list for 44 weeks, and I can see why. It's not preachy. It's not annoying. It's not about finding your spiritual blah-de-blah-blah. It's chock-full of interesting observations about what makes people happy, what makes people unhappy, and what it's like to spend a year dedicated to trying to do more of the former and less of the latter. (And also why it's completely NOT selfish to do that! Hooray!)
This comes at a particularly good moment for me, because as you know, I am trying to figure out how to whittle down my work responsibilities. It's helpful to have some signposts to direct me about which things are urgent, which are important, which make me happier and which detract from my happiness.
At any rate. One of the resolutions the author makes is to 'Tackle a Nagging Task'. This afternoon, it occurred to me that I have a nagging task that has been hanging around for THIRTEEN, yes THIRTEEN, years. It took me half an hour to do. And now it's done!
I confronted this task at least three times each day, and sometimes four or five. Every day when I woke up. Every day when I went to sleep. Every day when I made the bed or every time I took the sheets off to wash them, or put them on again. Every time I pulled the covers tight, or smoothed them down.
In order to understand this, you must understand that I have a weird relationship to money. Really, really weird---a little bit crazy, actually. And I often behave completely irrationally about it (this, by the way, is the source of much of my difficulties with accounting---if money is involved, it's super-easy to make me cry. And our accounting staff make even non-crazy people cry...imagine what they can do to me!) Purchasing even small things is a huge deal for me. Shopping for...anything...for myself is accompanied by lengthy internal monologues from "The Troll" in my head about what I "deserve", have "earned", can be trusted to "take proper care of", what I am "worthy of", whether or not I really "need it". It will sometimes take me multiple trips to the Department store to finally buy a six-pack of socks for $6.99. Sigh.
Thirteen years ago, for Christmas, we got a gift certificate to Eddie Bauer that enabled us to purchase a down comforter (not the nicest, fluffiest one, because of The Troll), and a duvet cover. They didn't have the cover in the size that fit the comforter, but only in the next larger size. I bought the duvet cover anyway, because I knew that if I didn't buy it right then, when my courage was up, I would never, ever get it, and then I would be stuck with this raw, white down comforter, which is even more impractical than a duvet cover that doesn't really fit. Besides, I rationalized, I can always just sew a seam down the long side, and then it will fit. Right? Right. And also, a duvet cover in the wrong size kind of fit in with what The Troll was telling me about luxurious down comforters. Serves me right.
There I was. Year after year, waking up every morning, fidgeting with the down comforter so that it lay in the middle of the duvet cover. Going to bed each night, tugging on the duvet cover so that it was centered over the comforter. Making the bed, washing the sheets, taking the cover off and putting it on, and each and every time thinking, "I need to fix this." That's approximately 13*365*3=14,000 times I had that thought. 14,000 times I felt a little bad that I hadn't gotten to it yet. 14,000 times I mentally shied away from thinking about it, and moved on to something else. It's ridiculous.
I was thinking today about the Happiness Project, and I suddenly wondered why I had never fixed that stupid thing. And I realized (hold on, because this is really disturbing) that I had never fixed it because I was afraid that if I tried to fix it, I would mess it up worse than it was. And that was REALLY bad, because a) I didn't really deserve it in the first place and b) clearly I couldn't be trusted to take good care of my things. Double-sigh. So then I thought f*!@K that. I'm going to try to fix it. And if I mess it up, I hereby give myself permission to buy a new one. So there. And I put all my courage together, and I annoyed John by starting a project when he just wanted to relax on the sofa, and I annoyed the dogs by putting this lovely comforter on the floor and not letting them lay on it. But I got started. And then I kept going.
Half an hour later, a nagging task that had been bothering me for more than 1/4 of my life was completed. And it's marvelous. It fits perfectly. It looks great. It's fixed. A big sticking out of my tongue to The Troll, and a new mental image I'm working on about defeating The Troll.
This feels great! What else can I do? I'm sure I have more nagging tasks around here somewhere!
(P.S. This gives me a good direction for my own Happiness Project. Clearly I need to do something about The Troll and that creepy, disturbing money relationship. "Money---it's a good servant, but a bad master." More about that in a future post, but not so far in the future that it becomes a nagging task!)
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