It's Monday, that day of the week when I decide to mend my ways. Once and for all.
Tuesday will come soon enough and the rationalization will start about why it's inconvenient, or hard, or too hot or too cold...embarrassing or pointless. The beauty of rationalization is the creativity it inspires. There is no end to the possibilities.
But, for today, it's Monday and I've done some laundry and some dishes. I've checked my calendar and have decided that I really must get my hair cut tomorrow.
It wasn't always like this. When I was working, Monday was for cringing. I would feel the weight of the thousand pound rock that hung over my head, waiting to drop. The hot breath of deadlines and unmet expectations was on my neck.
When I was a public relations executive in Chicago, I realized one day that each day I would do exactly as much work as the new stuff that arrived in the course of the day. That is to say, I'd jump in to my day, writing and calling and meeting and strategizing...all the while new projects were lining up like a new rank of soldiers.
At the end of the day, I had exactly as much to do as I had done.
There is actually a school of warfare that arranges troops like that. A shoulder-to-shoulder row would be backed by another and another. As the front row members would drop, the next guy behind would step up to take his place.
Ideally, the column would be able to advance and march over their fallen comrades, and thus win the battle.
But in my work life, it was often the case that my troops were pinned down, meeting the foes but not advancing a foot. It required enormous energy and concentration to hold that position. I would sometimes wonder whether holding the position was something like winning. It wasn't losing...at least I wasn't losing ground. But I wasn't making much progress in taking the hill.
Now that I am no longer working in the wider world, which still embarrasses and annoys me, it is much harder to measure my progress and advancement.
Am I holding the line by just doing what I want to do? I paint, I write, I've been making quilts for my granddaughter. I read. I go to endless doctors' appointments. I go to the gym.
Missing is the thousand pound rock, which makes me feel suspiciously guilty, but I'm getting over that. It actually feels really good to not have a rock hanging over you.
But what is the measure of the days? How do you decide whether you had a good day or a merely average one? The answer to that question will almost always get you a stupid answer. People assure me that I'm doing exactly what I should be doing, and maybe that's true. I'm not bothering anyone, and I'm not aware of being in anyone's way.
All of this points up the danger of using outside measurements to decide on one's value as a human being. The fact is, those measurements are meaningless, anyway. But it's hard, so very hard, to give them up. It felt good to be important. It felt good to have three meetings stacked up. It felt good to hear the phone ring and be late for something else because you were busy. The seduction of the exterior world is sweet and addictive.
Giving it up is exactly like breaking a long-standing addiction.
I'm working on giving up the long-standing addiction to food that is not good for me, and I discover that I will side with the addiction in every battle. What a blessing I never developed a taste for street drugs. I'd be drooling in a gutter or dead. There is something in us that loves the rush of the forbidden.
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