Small Change

I’m reconsidering small, lately, and applying it to 2015. While planning my New Year’s Resolutions, I’m thinking I’ll make them small. And by that I mean approaching them in small steps.

I love the New Year…starting fresh and putting the best foot forward. It’s exhilarating! Yet, the statistic is, most of us have forgotten our resolutions by February, and so I make it a point to at least reread them, quarterly. While I haven’t become a brilliant chess player, or learned all of the foreign swear words I’d planned to, I would revisit these things in the drag of summer, or beginning of fall to remind myself what I want to accomplish. I’d start my practice, but inevitably, they would fade into the background again. I think the real trick is to practice small, and daily.

Weight loss, for example, (the number one resolution); Why do we discuss this in terms of “when”? We say, “I’ll start my diet on the first” or “on Monday”. And whenever we fall off the wagon, we choose another start date or day. Why not right this minute? If we over-ate at breakfast, why do we consider it’s a loss and throw the baby out with the bathwater? Resolve that at lunchtime, you will have a healthy meal in smaller portions, every meal an opportunity to make positive decisions and to be proud of yourself, and when you’re proud of yourself, you’re empowered!  Daily, we can resolve to reset, then each night we can celebrate our awesomeness with, say, an earlier bedtime, or good book (more sleep and more reading…both excellent resolutions!). There’s a reason “One Day At A Time” is such a popular saying…it’s really the only way to live, because it’s simply what we have…right now! And our biggest anxieties occur when we are dwelling on the past, or fretting about the future.

Come in to Ducky Shincrackers and post your resolutions on Ducky’s 10 Best board, and Make & Take a little “Messages in a Bottle”, courtesy of the shop.

Welcome, sweet Baby New Year! Let’s be kind to each other!

Glad Tidings of Comfort and Joy!

Small is the New Black

I’m looking for a new television…a smaller one. Friends think I’m either super crazy, or super smart. I’ve opened conversation lately with this statement, and sometimes get the old speech about the “Idiot Box” and people who want me to commiserate with them on “Killing the TV”. My careful response is to come to the defense of my old, faithful friend, Television, and remind Naysayers that TV has changed our lives for the better.

I love TV. LOVE it. But don’t like that this big rectangle (not very big at all, actually) is front-and-center in the living room, and all furniture is staged to point towards it. How many absent-minded hours are spent with this thing on, droning in the background? I dare not count. BUT, without TV, we would not have seen the Moon landing or the Kennedy assassination, or celebrate the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year. Or “get to” Sesame Street.

The TV provides information, suspense, and comfort.

It generates energy, makes us laugh or cry (or both, if you watch MASH) and, for the most part, has enhanced our lives. I love getting lost in a story, especially one with the likes of Doris Day or Esther Williams….I imagine myself as characters of these stories and challenge myself to rise to their standards…even if they are fictional. But I find I want more quality time with characters I love in TV Land, instead of the quantity time I waste now.

I can relate the same argument to food. We talk about food, obsess about it, and deprive ourselves of it. When I meet someone who brags about cutting out sugar or not eating carbs, I shudder a bit (that is a feather in a cap I don’t want to wear, thank you very much). While I have a certain pang of jealously or, more appropriately, admiration for people of such restraint, I also know that deprivation isn’t a way to live (there’s a reason everyone who goes on a diet eventually goes off and gains all the weight back, and then some…we, as humans, do not like to be deprived!) and that maintaining a balance is more important. In most cases in my life, this just means going smaller.

Katharine Hepburn was right when  she said “Without discipline, there's no life at all,” but shouldn’t that come with less pain and more payoff? Why not enjoy a small, fresh-baked piece of bread (instead of a unfulfilling slice of supermarket white bread) and take the stairs that day to balance and avoid guilt? Or have what you absolutely love, in smaller portions?

Life should be more about living than beating ourselves up for things we feel guilty for, or being caught up in menial daily tasks.

Case in point: I was standing in an over-crowded Walmart line today, blowing my bangs up with a barely contained huffy out-breath, concentrating on a Star magazine headline and trying to tune-out the screaming child in the cart behind me. Why do I subject myself to such torture? I silently ask myself. Especially during the Holiday Season? What was I buying that was so important? Light bulbs, nails, glue, canning jars…. How much money am I “saving” at this store instead of going to that small, charming family-owned hardware store down the street? Where they wear Santa hats and are always willing to help. I did the mental math, and I was MAYBE saving $5 to $6. Maybe. Was that worth my precious time? Persevering grumpy crowds, undisciplined children, endless lines, and a downright scary parking lot? I had to reassess.

I don’t “Shop Small” in my community enough. The idea of only patronizing Mom & Pop places, at worst, seems way too inconvenient and expensive. And at best, seems like a tiny luxury, reserved for special occasions, like finding specialty items or gifts.

But it’s time to start doing things differently. Would Frank Sinatra or Gene Kelly wait in a frustrating, heavy populated line, like sheep? Or would they saunter into the locally owned shop, tipping hats to the family staff, getting what they need in a flash, so as to return to their worthwhile lives? Who would I rather be?

Trite as it is, Life really is Too Short. Living beautifully means living a life of quality, not just mindless quantity, and that applies to TV, food, shopping…well, everything. And living beautifully can be a challenge when you’re stuck in a cattle chute waiting to pay for things on a conveyer belt, with a wall of tabloids on one side, and a rack of Kit-Kats on the other (especially when you justify the purchase of such colorfully packaged junk food because you’ve no time to cook a proper dinner because you’ve wasted any precious free time in lines. Junk food, weight gain, bad screen time…it’s a viscous cycle). And, It’s hard to be Audrey when you feel like you’ve just stepped into an episode of Montel.

I’m taking this challenge: to Shop Small…small businesses, that is. Try it with me. And see if you don’t just like yourself a little bit better. When casting the roles of your life, don’t you want to be a character you like? Instead of one who is compromising self and time to save $6?

Think about it.  

I know for me, I want to waste less time in warehouse style stores (who wants to be trapped in a “big box”), frequent little shops in my community (not just because I have one!), eat better food in smaller portions, and return with my purchases to a tidy parlor, where the TV is tucked away until it’s ready to be watched.

"Sometimes the best way to make a big difference is adding up lots of small ones."