In his seminal work, Mere Christianity, author C. S. Lewis discusses the idea that each decision we make changes us. It turns us closer to or farther away from Good. I find that idea intriguing. If that is true, than I am not the same person today as I was yesterday. I am either closer toward God or further away.
Lewis goes on to claim that when we are closer toward Goodness, we know it, but when we are further away, we do not know it. He likens it to being asleep. When we are asleep,
Have you ever been in the situation where you were roped into a conflict without realizing it? This used to happen to me all the time. My son would be running late for school, unable to find his sneakers, for example, and meltdown. (He’s an adolescent.) The next thing I knew, I was arguing with him about putting his things where they belong and why he didn’t set them out the night before, etc. The argument escalates and you both part angry.
You know the script. You’ve probably done this routine many times. What had started out as a perfectly serene day for you is now full of conflict and irritation. Do you wonder why this happened? If you think it’s just because the other person is irresponsible, disorganized, (fill in your own adjective here), etc. think again. The problem is that you were drawn into the situation, seemingly against your will. Why and how did that happen?
One of the goals I’ve set for myself is to become a better writer. How does one do that? Why by writing, of course. In our society, it has never been easier to write. Most of us don’t even need pen and paper to do it. Many of us have a computer at our disposal with a word processing program already loaded. What could be easier? It’s not the act of writing, though, that is the difficult part, I find. No, the hard part is the thinking.
I can’t remember who pointed it out to me, but if you call to mind the famous statue by Rodin The Thinker, you’ll see what I mean. Look at his pose. He’s a bit twisted and doesn’t look terribly comfortable. I think that may have been intentional by Rodin. Thinking is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart.
Have you seen the article about flossing that’s gone viral on the internet over the past several weeks? This one is about the lack of clinical evidence that flossing prevents tooth decay. When my cousin sent me the article, I thought it was a hoax, but it appeared to be from NYTimes Magazine, no lightweight in the publishing world. As I read it, I grew alarmed, not by the content of the article but by the implications. By glancing at the headlines one could come away with the idea that flossing doesn’t work. What the article actually says is that there aren’t clinical trials to prove that it works.
Why is it that we, as humans, will skip over 54,000 information bytes that give one opinion, but will focus on the ONE byte that opines differently, especially if it concerns something we’re not crazy about doing anyway? It’s one of the endearing qualities that makes us special, I guess.
Thanksgiving is fast approaching. It’s catching me by surprise this year – again. Is Thanksgiving still relevant? Is it important to set aside a day – one day – each year for the task of giving thanks for all that we have been given?
I say, yes! Each of us, no matter how wealthy or impoverished, has much to be thankful for. Maybe it is that we woke up on the right side of the grass today, as we like to say in my family. Maybe it is that the leaves are indescribably beautiful as they change. Maybe it is that no one in our family has had a trip to the E.R. in the past week, the past month, the past year (well, okay, the past month then). Maybe it is that my parents are still alive and in reasonably good health. Maybe it is that our country is not in a civil war at the moment. Maybe it is that there was food for breakfast this morning. Maybe it’s that I can get myself dressed each day without assistance. See, there is so very much to be thankful for.
I’ve been reading lately about habits; how to get rid of bad ones, how to encourage good ones. The author, James Clear, seems to be a master of…well…mastering habits. He used a specific example that I love and wanted to pass along. He said he used to be a non-flosser. He said that he wanted to change that habit and make a habit of daily flossing (hooray!) so what he did was to change his environment.
Rather than keep his dental floss tucked away in a drawer or in the medicine cabinet, he placed a bowl next to his toothbrush and filled it with flossers. He attached the new habit he wanted to start (flossing daily) to an existing habit (brushing teeth). That way, whenever he brushed his teeth before bed, he saw the flossers next to his toothbrush and voila! He always remembered to floss after that because he was already in the habit of brushing his teeth.
