I just discovered by chance a useful exercise to help figure out some of what I really want to own. It’s my birthday at the end of the month and someone asked what gift I’d like. “Great,” I thought, “I’ll email my Amazon wish list”. I knew it would be quite long, because as I browse, I add things that catch my eye.
So I did a quick cull of my list. Easy peasy. Then I took another look. I wondered what my friend might choose, and I found myself thinking “Oh, I hope I don’t get such and such”. Ding!!! (That’s the sound of a lightbulb going on above my head.) I went through that list asking myself honestly what I would be disappointed to receive and therefore didn’t really want. I deleted about 90% of the list.
It was difficult, partly because most of the books that made the cut were less highbrow than my self-image would like! But I finally figured out the main problem was letting go of possibilities. I’m never going to be a food photographer, I’m never going to grow my own drugs, or be a private eye (honest to God, there was a mad moment there a while back…). There are only so many self-help books or expositions on the world religions one person can read.
Letting go of the possibilities and promises with which each of those books tantalised me was difficult. But I feel unexpectedly lighter now. That wish list was building up a whole lot of mental “shoulds” I wasn’t even aware of.
Does this strike a chord? What possibilities do you need to let go of?
Image above by Eneas
Elsewhere:
For readers in England (or intrepid travellers): I’m co-teaching our introductory Enneagram course at Turvey Abbey (right) on the 12th to 14th February 2010. Turvey is a beautiful Benedictine monastery in Bedfordshire, UK. Places are filling up fast, so if you’re interested or know someone who might be, click here (and scroll down) to find out more or book a place.
It’s Blog Action Day on 15th October. We’ll be blogging about climate change. Why not join us – click here to register.
And we’re fast coming up to National Novel Writing Month (well they say national, but I’m reading it as international). The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during November. Mad? Yes of course, that’s the fun of it. I signed up yesterday, despite the fact I’m busy every weekend in November. And then today I got confirmation I’ll be needed for a consultancy job taking place in… you guessed it, November. Well who needs to sleep?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
50,000 words in a month??? Are you crazy?? I need to deliver 80,000 words by next June and I already feel like I’m behind the curve…;-(
I love your pictures of hands. I will think of you on October 15 and blogging on climate change. On this day, however, I will be starting to walk from Burgos to Santiago…
@Steve, welcome to my blog and thanks for your comment. Yes, I am certifiable!
@Claire, thank you, and how wonderful that you are doing the Santiago walk.
Found this quote yesterday in Elizabeth A. Johnson’s “Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit.” On the infinite variety and impossible plenitude of nature, the naturalist Louis Agassiz says, ‘I spent the summer traveling. I got halfway across my backyard.’
you better get that blog action post written before october 15, because i know where you’ll be
i love your process of elimination re: the books, etc. i was also struck by this line: “That wish list was building up a whole lot of mental “shoulds” I wasn’t even aware of.” it reminds me of a discussion i had yesterday which ended with considering throughout the week – what do YOU really want? not what others think you should want or be.
those “should’s” can get me nearly every time. it’s one switch i’m learning to turn down (if not turn off) more and more frequently.
So many opportunities, so many possibilities, so much information… where’s my intentionality?
In some ways the thoughts that you express in your entry are the reason that I’m taking a break from blogging.
There’s also the problem of too much choice, or as Barry Schwartz puts it – the paradox of choice. I guess that the key to actually realising any of the myriad possibilities that lie before us is serious reflection leading to intentional commitment.
@kigen: wonderful quote. We so often ignore what’s right in front of us.
@lucy: yes, the joys of pre-scheduled posting! Continued good luck with that switch.
@endlessly: I will be sorry if the end result of your ponderings is not to continue blogging, but can completely understand it. You use the word intentional – I think that’s really important.
Tess, I hear you with the long, long wish list. Me, too, but that has changed. My downfall is new books, the ones that aren’t at the library yet. Sigh!!
In the last few years it fell to me to deal with my grandparents’ home where my aunt lived and with my mother’s home. To my astonishment, in both homes, the same furniture was there and much of it in the same places it had been for my whole life. They kept the old and made do, even using short almost used up pencils before sharpening a new pencil. I’ve come to be certain that I need to do that, too. Perhaps I have enough? Almost enough anyway! That “don’t need it” switch is getting some use.
Hugs!
Barbara Anne, you’ve reminded me of my mother’s habit of keeping used matches in a saucer by the oven so she could use each one two or three times by lighting it from a flame on the oven hob. Each match would be burned down to the last centimetre.
I think we all need to do the sort of thing you describe, for the planet and for ourselves.
Tess, I love that story about your mom! There’s a controversy in China and Japan, about disposable wooden chop sticks used everywhere in restaurants — they get one use and for sanitary reasons are simply tossed away — the amount of wasted wood is enormous. But how about the Internet helping to size down the dead-tree versions of many newspapers, that at least is an up side!
turvey abbey looks lovely
particularly the chapel
oh that i could travel back to the UK and attend your course
alas, that is a possibility i have to let go of
@kigen: in the UK in many Chinese restaurants we often have disposable plastic chopsticks, which is even worse! Agree about the internet.
@kel: well done for letting go of that possibility!! (Yes, Turvey is beautiful.)
Hi Tess, I am a reader in Alaska and came to your site through Lucy’s and MindSieve. You can’t imagine how much your post resonated with me. I am going through a whole process around books and I blogged about it a few weeks ago. It took me about 12 paragraphs or so and was amazed by how you could pull all of your thoughts together so succinctly. : ) Something that comes with writing every day, I am sure. The mental “shoulds” was something that I grapple with as well. I wrote a poem about part of my relationship with books.
Seduction
Seduced by the possibilities
of unknown worlds
and a brand new me
unfolding
with the turn of a page.
Falling again
to the infinite promise
of a book
not yet begun.
@Rebecca – thanks so much for commenting and welcome to my blog. Your poem is great, that’s EXACTLY how I feel about books.