Tag Archives: Thoughtful Thursday

Standards for Adulthood

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It sounds dramatic to phrase it like this, but sometimes I sabotage myself. The other night I flipped open my computer at about 10:30, even though minutes before I had been planning to head to bed. As is inevitable, I ended up surfing the internet for over an hour, not really doing anything useful. And once I shut the laptop, I had trouble falling asleep because I’d gotten wound up from my piddling and from the light of the screen. So then once I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t get up to go to the gym the next morning, and I started the day feeling groggy and upset with myself for not exercising. I knew I really needed to go to bed, but I didn’t.

Sometimes making a decision like that makes me feel like an adult. “I’m an adult and I’m going to stay up until midnight watching Veronica Mars because I can and no one can tell me not to!!” And then sometimes it just makes me feel like crap.

I know it’s important to give yourself grace. But I also think it’s important not to give yourself too much. Especially as a type-A personality, I need to have standards for myself. Holding myself to certain standards is, I’d say, a large part of what has made me successful at the things I’ve been successful at in my life. My parents were never super hard on me about grades because they knew I was hard enough on myself, and in fact I made mostly A’s for my entire school career.

I believe that I am capable of a lot and I strive for near-perfection in most things. I am perhaps more disappointed in myself over perceived failures than others because I believe I can be better (even over silly things like giving in to eating a cookie in the kitchen at work). But there’s gotta be a line somewhere between beating myself up and being grumpy over mess-ups while still not sabotaging myself on a Sunday night when I’m lured in by the computer.

How do you handle “keeping yourself in line?” Do you struggle with standards, whether realistic or not?

Eat to Live

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There are always snacks at my women’s Bible study group, and even though I’ve always eaten dinner before I come, I always eat the snacks. Sometimes, I try to plan my dinner accordingly, knowing that I will nibble on something. But at our last meeting, there was a bowl of caramel popcorn that I could not. Stop. Eating. If you asked me objectively if I liked caramel popcorn, I would say no. If you handed me a menu of desserts and caramel popcorn was one of the options, it’s never the one I would pick. Yet I couldn’t keep my hand out of that bowl. I even told myself at one point, “Okay, you’re done. You can stop now.” And then I went back for more. I’m sure there are worse things than caramel popcorn, but I felt low. I felt like I ought to be able to control when I stopped eating. I felt like I ought to be able to say no.

Enter the Whole 30.

I’ve heard about this plan for awhile. I like that it doesn’t bill itself as a “diet.” Instead, its creators really want to help you change your mindset about food, and I think I’m ready for that. The caramel popcorn incident sent me over the edge.

The gist of the Whole 30 is that you eat whole foods for 30 days. It cuts out some elements that I’ve always thought were “healthy,” like all legumes and dairy, but it also cuts out the usual suspects: all added sugar and “sugar,” alcohol, grains, white potatoes. The authors say, “Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed.”

I eat pretty healthy, and I am pretty active, but I think it’s easy to use moderation as a crutch. You know, a lot of times magazines and whatnot give the advice to “just take the stairs” and it’ll make a difference, but Jillian Michaels, fitness guru extraordinaire, says “That is a false method of lethargy that isn’t doing you any favors. You ARE capable of working out. You’re capable of working out HARD.” I’m sort of feeling that about my diet lately.

I also listened to a podcast recently featuring Stanford professor BJ Fogg and his premise that in order to enact personal change, you need to make the change so small that it doesn’t take any willpower. For example, he started doing one pushup every time he went to the bathroom. And eventually, he started doing more. And then pushups weren’t hard anymore, so he started doing them other times as well. He’s currently working on putting his socks on inside out, just as a means of being in control of his behaviors. And something about that appealed to me: being so conscious of yourself that you’re trying to change a random behavior just because you can.

So given all of that, it’s a perfect storm that’s making me want to try to Whole 30. I want to see what I feel like if I’m eating that way, and I want to change my behaviors just as an experiment.

I’m sort of dithering, which is exactly what the authors say not to do, but I’m planning to start at the beginning of a month, because for my obsessive compulsive self that just seems right. (Plus, I want to read the book ahead of time and really give the psychological side its due weight.) However, I realized there was no reason I couldn’t start making some of the suggested changes in the meantime! Two areas where I’m trying to break my patterns of thinking are in what constitutes a “meal” and in what a snack looks like. Somehow I’ve gotten it in my head that a meal includes a meat, a starch, and a veggie. (I also cook a fair amount of casseroles, but that’s a whole other post…) But who’s to say you can’t have 2 veggies instead of the starch?! And as far as snacks go, I often envision pretzels or a granola bar. But why can’t my snack be a hard-boiled egg?! So I’m playing with these mental shifts even though I haven’t fully dived into the Whole 30.

I’m trying in the build up to put more “whole food” recipe blogs in my line of vision. I don’t keep potato chips in the house and I mostly don’t miss them, so I’m applying a similar principle to what I consume on the internet. I’ll probably be excited about whatever is in front of me, so I can let it be caramel popcorn or I can try and let it be healthier fare. Most of the recipes I’ve looked at so far have looked delicious and honestly no more difficult than what I currently cook, and the array of snacks I can think about having on hand is exciting! I think that cheese will be the hardest for me to give up, because I’ve always thought of it as a pretty healthy, proteinatious snack option.

I’ve never done any sort of diet in my life EVER, so this feels like a really big deal to me. But I’m trying to be really careful not to think of it as a weight-loss strategy. I really want to change how I think about food. I get a little panicky thinking that I might love it and I might never eat a chocolate bar again, but I will just have to cross that bridge if I come to it. I’ll keep you posted once I get started as I find recipes I like, and I’ll report back about how I’m feeling.

Do you have a favorite diet plan or approach to food? Have you ever tackled a big behavorial change like this?

What Does Charity Look Like?

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When you live in, work in, or frequently visit the intown neighborhoods of a big city, it’s a foregone conclusion that you will encounter people begging: asking for money, asking for food, sitting on the sidewalk with a cup. You’ll probably also encounter people who aren’t asking but whose demeanor indicates that they’re not in the best shape. You could write a whole book on this topic, and in fact plenty of people have, but as I work in emergency assistance and live in the city, it’s a problem that I ponder a lot. I’m not going to lie, people often make me uncomfortable. I want to be a model of “Christian charity” and be friendly and generous, but I’m also a young, reasonably attractive woman, and fear tends to jump to mind before generosity. Also, working at a nonprofit where I encounter people in need most days, I think I’ve become even more skeptical of the stories people weave to try and sway me on the street. I don’t like this about myself, but it’s a fact. Watching the news makes me feel justified in being afraid, but reading the Bible makes me feel convicted that I’m falling short.

So what to do? I don’t know all the answers. Here are two situations I’ve encountered recently.

One Sunday afternoon, a teenager in a baseball uniform came up to me with a grungy laminated paper and a bucket with a story about collecting money to try and get his team to some tournament. I smiled politely and said, “Not today.” (That’s my canned response…it sounds polite, but I also know in the back of my mind that it won’t be tomorrow either…) He very well may have been collecting money for his baseball team, and a lot of people would say it’s not my place to judge: I should just give if I feel led to give and move on, not worrying about what he did with the money. But I think sometimes our charity can hurt more than it helps and so I am wary of generosity in the form of cash.

Another night, I was driving home late after a work event. Andy was out of town, so no one was expecting me. I had multiple takeout containers of leftover catered food in my backseat. As I exited the interstate to a mostly deserted intersection, I saw a man standing by the red light with a sign that said something about being hungry. I glanced at the food in my rearview mirror. I didn’t need it. But I was afraid to roll my window down; afraid to be a woman alone in a car opening the window to a man, even just enough to reach out and hand him some food. I sat awkwardly avoiding his glance until the light turned green, and I went home. I felt ashamed, but I also felt like I had made the right decision for my safety. I hate that dichotomy, and I’m in awe of stories where people go above and beyond to help a stranger, especially this one I read recently where a mom and her kids did things I would have been terrified to do.

I’m pretty buttoned up with my cash. Andy and I keep a budget, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, and it’s a zero-based budget: we give every dollar a job, and some of those dollars’ jobs are to go to charities of our choosing. So for me to hand someone a 20 on the street would be outside of my budget. That’s a lame excuse, but it crosses my mind. Should I budget some 20s for those situations? I don’t know. I’m also a rule-follower and trust in our systems, probably because the system has never let me down. I can’t imagine what it must be like when you fall through the cracks, or even when you follow all the “rules” and things still don’t turn out right. I would hope that people on the streets could find other avenues for help than my wallet, but perhaps my trust in those avenues is a little too strong given the number of people that still need help.

I love the idea of keeping “blessing bags” (though the name is pretty patronizing) or even just granola bars in your car to give to people. Food is tangible, and I’m not skeptical of giving it like I am of cash. I don’t know exactly what I think is going to happen if I engage with someone enough to give them help in the form of food. Andy and I were semi-approached by a guy one night when we were walking home with a to-go box, and Andy happily turned it over to him. He said thanks and kept walking, and we went home. It was fine. But whenever I see someone who looks they might be going to approach me, my heart starts to race a little bit. When I see someone hanging out by the sidewalk asking everyone who passes by for help, I put my eyes to the ground and pick up my pace. I usually try to at least give a quick glance and a smile, not that that helps them at all.

I’m not proud of these stories, but they’re the truth, and I think this is a conversation we all need to be having. It’s not okay to turn a blind eye to folks in need, but I think you also have to be true to yourself. I just wish my true self were a little more open to fearless generosity.

How do you handle situations when you are approached for money or assistance? What philosophy colors your interactions with people who need help?

Making Friends

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I read a fascinating article awhile ago about making friends as an adult. (Well, it was about making friends over the age of 30, but I’ll extrapolate, because I think it applies.) This is obviously something that I’ve given a lot of thought to in the past few years, especially since moving to Atlanta. For me one of the stumbling blocks always seems to be, “But I have these awesome friends in other places and I don’t know how to make this new relationship be like the one I have with So and So.”

The article states that “the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.”

This seems to happen easily in college. You’ve obviously got the proximity thing down pat, and unplanned interactions happen easily in the cafeteria, the post office, the gym, the dorm bathroom. And we’re you’re literally living together, it’s pretty easy to let your guard down.

I spent 6 years in a dorm setting and have the friends to prove it. But once I graduated and was living in Huntsville, I exclaimed to Andy one night, “I don’t think I’m very good at making friends!” It’s so, so hard to move beyond a relationship where you see each other in a certain setting and get along well but never interact outside of that one place. And it’s even harder to know who and how to approach to try and make that happen. The author of the article puts it this way about a woman she has seen 4 times in the course of a year: “We are “friends,” but not quite friends. We keep trying to get over the hump, but life gets in the way.”

It’s so true. When everyone has jobs and marriages and especially kids, it takes an act of congress to meet up with people. I had a drink last night with two friends from my church small group who have moved to new neighborhoods. We planned the get-together 18 days ago. Hardly an unplanned interaction. But that doesn’t discount how great and important it is to see your friends. In fact, in some ways it adds even more weight to the relationship that you’re willing to set something on your calendar that far in advance.

I’ve watched my parents build a community around themselves since moving 8 years ago, and it’s pretty incredible all the different places where they’ve developed relationships. I guess for most of my life their main social group (especially for my mom) was by default the other parents of my friends, swim team-mates, etc. But now they have a pretty rich group of people with whom they do fun and interesting things.

The article puts forth a case study on a certain approach to adult friendships: “Some, like Ms. Degliantoni, the fund-raising executive, simply downsize their expectations. ‘I take an extremely efficient approach and seek out like-minded folks to fill very specific needs,’ she said of her current strategy. ‘I have a cocktail friend and a book friend and a parenting friend and several basketball friends and a neighbor friend and a workout friend. It’s much easier filling in those gaps in my life,” she added, “than doing an exhaustive approach for a new friend.’”

I could see that working pretty well actually, and being nice enough, but my heart still craves that friendship, even if it’s just one, where you can call someone and know they’ll be right over if you need them to.

I’m clearly not an expert on this, but I’m working on it…though let’s not talk about keeping up with the old friends, ’cause that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

Three Books on Thursday: John Green

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I do not have an obsessive personality. Wait, that might surprise some of you. Let me expound: I have some friends (you know who you are!) who discover a new musician, TV show, or author and MUST READ/WATCH/LISTEN TO ALL AVAILABLE OPTIONS AND FIND OUT EVERY BIT OF POSSIBLE INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET. While I am obsessive about many things, this does not usually end up being one of mine. Sure, I have shows and movies I enjoy following, and I have authors whose books I read regularly, but I can usually stop at will. Case in point: I read the first Twilight book in college after eschewing the series for ages. I was disgusted that I enjoyed it but wanted to know what happened…so I got my roommate to give me a synopsis of the middle books and skipped to reading the last one so as not to waste any more of my life on them than necessary. (Though in a fit of boredom my senior year, I did eventually go back and read them.) I went to see the first Twilight movie in theaters but only watched the rest of them this year on DVD. So while I often enjoy things that are popular, I usually dive in only grudgingly and sparingly.

Cue seeing mention everywhere on the internet about an author named John Green. Several blog friends said they were reading his books, and his name popped up all over NPR’s list of top 100 teen novels. Who is this John Green fellow, I thought? As I read the descriptions of his books on Amazon, I found myself adding several of them to my wishlist. Wanting an engrossing novel to read, I recently checked out 2 from my local library, which I devoured. I was hooked. So then I checked out the other 2, one of which I read in a single day (a day on which I also worked and slept, I might add). And finally my dad gifted me the most recent one on my Kindle, because it had an indefinite wait at the library and I couldn’t stand it!

After reading all five of his published books, I have to say that I think John Green deserves every bit of the hype he’s getting right now and then some. The books aren’t a series; each one features totally distinct scenarios and characters. But I absolutely could not stop after reading just one or two!

But wait, you say, isn’t this Three Book Thursday? Why yes, yes it is, which is why, without further ado, I’m going to expound on my three favorites of John Green’s books.

  1. The Fault in Our Stars
    This is Green’s most recent book, and it was absolutely devastating and beautiful. It follows a group of kids who have or had cancer, for whom just about nothing is normal. The characters are unabashedly smart. They use big words. They read. They have conversations I could never imagine real teenagers having but would want them to. Green evidently spent a few years as a chaplain in a children’s oncology ward, so he is intimately familiar with the situations he outlines in this book. The love in this book is so raw and true. I found myself sobbing through about the last 25% of this book, but I would read it again in a heartbeat. That’s when you know a book is good.
  2. Will Grayson, Will Grayson
    This book was a collaboration between John Green and David Levithan, with each author tackling the story of one of the Will Graysons (yes, there are two, and yes, they meet in the novel.) Some people told me that this was their least favorite of Green’s books, but I was charmed by it. The best way I can think to describe this book is as delightfully improbable. In fact, I’d describe most of Green’s books that way! I don’t know that I’ve read a book with a gay protagonist before, but Tiny Cooper won me over. This was a refreshingly modern story that I think would bring a lot of hope to some high school students who feel like outcasts.
  3. Looking for Alaska
    This was John Green’s first book, which means I read it first. I always had a soft spot in my heart for the first Harry Potter book, and I think I love this one for a similar reason: the magical world was so new to me that I couldn’t help but fall head over heels. I also liked that this one took place at a) a boarding school and b) in Alabama. Though my MSMS experience was nothing like the one these pranksters had at the fictionalized version of Indian Creek, it still brought back some nice nostalgia. And if you didn’t go to boarding school, this might make you wish you had. I’ve struggled before reading books with male main characters, but this one sucked me right in. I love the very specific quirks Green assigns to his characters; Miles’ is that he memorizes famous people’s last words. The quirk is not necessarily a plot element, but it weaves itself in there and makes itself memorable.
So there you have it! My top 3 John Green Books. It’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy An Abundance of Katherines (in fact, Colin had perhaps my favorite quirk: mentally anagramming words and phrases. His best friend’s propensity to tell him his various bits of trivia were “not interesting” was endearing.) and Paper Towns, but I’d recommend these three first.

 
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