So…here’s the deal: I suck.

No, really—I do. I suck, and at lots of stuff: Getting regular exercise. Returning phone calls. Housekeeping (and I have the 4″ dreadlock of hair extricated from between the center prong of my rolling desk chair and the filthy carpet to prove it.)

But forget about the stuff that will put me in an early grave with a friendless funeral. I also suck at many of Your More Important Things in Life. Stuff like patience. Focus. Generosity. General abundance thinking. (Because spending a year and a half of your life hungry, cold and only allowed to use three sheets of toilet paper—for #2—can really firm up a scarcity mindset.)

And yeah, yeah: I know that I’m not the only one. No offense, but that is SO not the point.

Nor am I better or (nor?) worse than anyone. Again, completely irrelevant. Except, of course, that it’s one of the things I’d like to stop sucking so much at. I want to be cool with being me, rather than comparing myself to all of you lovely people (or the losers sitting next to you, for that matter.)

I also have some presence of mind left with which to note that I’m not a hopeless case. I don’t need to check myself into a program or call my emo sponsor or take off on a vision quest. Which is good, because until they allow for overnight motel accommodations, including nightly hot shower, vision quests are off the table.

No, in my time of need, I turn to…you!

Yes, you, dear Internet friends. You and the patented, communicatrix 21-Day Salute™, a one-two punch guaranteed to shake me out of my funk, knock out the cobwebs and get my head screwed back on straight. One part accountability, one part discipline, one part observation, my salutes keep me honest while (hopefully) keeping you entertained. In other words, just because I’m working on my shit doesn’t mean the swearing has to stop.

Here’s what does have to stop: me.

For 21 days, I’m going to apply my attention to stopping in bad, uncomfortable, sad, angry, pushy, greedy, icky moments to—ever so briefly, for the most part—ask why. But that’s not all. I’m also going to just STOP! randomly and check in to see what’s the happ.

Like just now, f’rinstance, I stopped and asked myself what was going on.

Tightness. Legs crossed tight, jaw tensed up, butt perched at end of incredibly expensive, ergonomically-designed, rolling desk chair like it was a $5 stool.

And why?

Too much coffee. Anxiety over whether I can stick to a 21-day salute™ when I’m leaving town in 16. Creeping Loser-itis over not getting enough work done.

I could go on, but that’s not the point of today’s entry. Today’s entry is about STARTING to STOP. Committing to stopping, to observing (hopefully without too much judging), to doing things slightly differently.

Kind of a Method-meditation mashup for everyday life.

And maybe at the end of it, I’ll have a bigger project to work on. Maybe I’ll have some clarity on a few things. Maybe I’ll just learn that I’m really, really bad at stopping… noting… readjusting. Since I just found myself in the exact same clenched, tensed, ready to launch myself into the blue yonder, I’m gonna say… “yes” on bad.

No matter! The stopping starts now!

Aaaaaand now!

And again, now!

(I thank you in advance for bearing with me on this.)

xxx
c

For those of you who are new to communicatrix and the 21-Day Salute™, there’s a writeup here, along with descriptions of each of the salutes I’ve done since the blog launched. Excelsior!

Image by JeffKao via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, change, life, meditation, Stop! Sucking!.

This entry was posted by the communicatrix on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at and is filed under The Personal Ones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.