Do as I Meme

I give good advice.  I should take it.  I’d be better off if I did.  ​

But I don’t. At least not always, and definitely not in the past week.  This week has been nutty with a capital Q.  Lots of changes to things on which I depend greatly.  Lots of things for which I’m grateful and frankly, a lot of scary stuff too. (Now don’t worry about me; the stuff for which I’m grateful is way more pertinent to my general well-being than the other stuff, even if the other stuff is still really scary.) Everything is floaty and ambiguous and although I still have my North Star, I feel like I’m staring at it from a bizarro-world South Pole.  Because of this, my grownup-life-maintenance-adulting-type activities have reduced in direct proportion to the nuttiness in my life.  The world is spinning around me.  I haven’t seen the point in packing my lunches or getting up early enough to take the train in (Uber, I cannot resist your siren-song these days).

Now, my meme-self probably has something to say along lines of, don’t worry about what you can’t control, keep your head down and do the work (only wittier and profoundier, because my meme-self is way more articulate than my current self).  But my meme-self has a soft, evenly-modulated and low-pitched voice that can’t hold a candle to the high-pitched screeching of “what if’s” currently circling around in my head. 

Keep your head down and do your work.  It is good advice.  I should take it.  It also feels almost impossible to do.  The rules have changed, I’m getting tired, and I don’t know if I have it within me to win the game.  Why keep on, keeping on?  It's hard and it makes my head hurt. Obsessing, ruminating and binge-eating carb-rich, salty snacks? That seems much more achievable. When the muse of motivation has let the door hit me in the ass on their way out, it’s really (like ridiculously really) hard for me to find the wherewithal to pay attention to all the good advice out there, meme or otherwise.  It’s almost impossible to practice the small, unglamorous, but ultimately life-defining habits that create meaning out of my world’s chaos.  “The world as we know it is ending.  Who cares if I’ve done the dishes?”  I say to myself.

But because you’re reading this (hi Mom) and I want to seem like I have it together in an up-with-people-be-your-best-self-embrace-your-challenges sort of way (a significant motivator for me), I’m going to concentrate on the word, “almost.”  It is hard and a lot of times that difficulty knocks me down and the only thing I have the strength to do is curl up under my pink comforter and wait it out – no shame in that (I tell myself often, sometimes desperately); it happens.  BUT it is only almost impossible.  There are days when I can’t do it; but then there are also days when I am able to bargain, cajole and sometimes just plain bully myself into taking my own advice.  It’s hard and it even feels like complete futility to try; but sometimes however, I find it in me to do it anyway, and on those days I find a comfort that isn’t dependent on life’s caprices.  I have yet to regret it.

So, take a look at the memes (mine and others) that resonate with you.  Pick one of them – just one, and really give it a try.  I’ll understand if you decide not to, and even more if today, you just can’t; I’ve been there.  But if you do, do it (do-do, ha ha), know that I’m trying live one too and I’m pretty sure that if we both do, we’ll be grateful to ourselves that we did. 
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What smart to say but (really) hard to do, piece advice are you going to follow tomorrow?

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