Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [80]
Bring back the fun!
What silly thing do you love doing that you haven't done for years? Treat yourself to some pointless pleasure. Play pinball. Break out the coloring books, jacks, or Candyland.
Some of us like to relax with games on the computer or video gaming systems. Unless you're blessed with as much free time as you want, and don't have anything else on your list that you'd rather accomplish, you might want to limit the amount of time you spend distracted in these alternate worlds.
When you do play, D. Keith Robinson has a simple suggestion: Play on an easier setting than normally do. Okay. Maybe you won’t be challenging yourself properly, but, really, what's your goal here? To become better at this particular game or relax and have fun? Weigh the satisfaction you achieve after 30 minutes at easy versus hard and go for that which leaves you the jolliest. It's just like tossing a ball around in the yard instead of suiting up for a regulation football game. Who cares if you aren't playing it the tough way? Don't you get enough “tough” elsewhere in your life?
Go have some dumb fun. (You know, happy dumb, not Darwin Awards dumb.) Take a break with a silly movie you love, watch cartoons, tell knock-knock jokes with little kids, or go drinking with a big gang of friends dressed in Santa outfits. Decorate cupcakes. Drive up to the outlook and neck in the backseat. Paint your toenails. Go bowling. Tiaras usually help. (If you really want to get wild, invent a new holiday.)
Loosen up and let yourself be you. Start as small as you need to, but keep tuning in to that inner voice that says, “The real me wants out.” It’s the 21st century, folks; we can let go of single-context identity. From automobiles, to civil rights, to airplanes, to the Internet, these amazing innovations mean that, since we now can be anywhere doing anything with anybody, we each become, within our individuality, a multiplicity. We’re each too big to pigeonhole anymore. Embrace your own diversity.
Symptom #32: Emotional Baggage
Solution #32: Opt out of Unnecessary Drama
A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.
—Henry David Thoreau, philosopher
Calm helps you cope
There is a moment of choice in how you react which deeply impacts your future self. When facing that moment, “Don't Freak Out” is always the best option.
Maybe you’re having one of those postwork evenings that are part restoration and part collapse, and you’re watching a movie. The DVD player in your computer jams and the computer won't eject the DVD. Then the computer doesn't believe it has a DVD drive, even after restarting.
You start to work yourself up into an “Oh, no! I can't afford this problem” worried state of mind. Stop and shut down, which helps sometimes with computers, turn the laptop upside down (the disk floats on a spindle), and go take a nice bath. Read a relaxing book (one of Richard Carlson’s Don't Sweat the Small Stuff series would be ideal).
When you are sufficiently soaked, come out for a brief but unworried test. Turn the laptop over, start it up, hold down the eject button, and out should come the disk, sweet as you please. It doesn't always work that way, although it did for me. Even if it doesn’t come out, you’ll have had time to remind yourself of people you know who could help you figure out how to fix it, and you’ll still have had relaxation time, which was the goal in the first place. Your new mantra can be the phrase attributed to NASA astronaut Fred Haise: “Never panic too early.”
Prioritize your energy
Emotional turmoil can almost always move to the bottom of your list. Unless you’re overdue for a good cry, or want to punch a pillow, or otherwise blow off a bad steam buildup, there are always more productive things for you to do. Find a little breathing space and give some to others when you can see that they need it. Ease the tension and let something other than drama take your time.
Even the very best group of family or friends can sometimes be annoying, so I encourage