When I got up this morning, I did what I normally do. A favorite sunny yellow mug with half an organic lemon and hot water from the magic little faucet in the kitchen. (Love that thing!)
Feet up. Check for messages. Mostly the usual. And an odd one. Which, even more oddly, I actually opened.
What, inquired my mystery correspondent, did you accomplish yesterday?
My first, un-pondered, not for public consumption, response was, I survived!
Then the other voices in my head chimed in… that’s not an accomplishment!
What does accomplish mean?
Like finished??? Or, made progress on??? Or possibly even, showed up for??? Well, you get the drift. In fact, you may be familiar with some of those voices!
Then another voice kicked in. According to whom?
Now we were on a roll! The next voice in my head belonged to famed teacher and author, the late Stephen Covey. You’ve probably heard of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and perhaps even my favorite, The 8th Habit.
I reached for my markers and paper. Never mind for a moment that my memory does not store things in neat file folders like Habit #Whatever. What I was looking for was right in my head. And here:
But first, my list. Well, some of it…
- I did, in fact, survive, despite my current spell of very cranky joints. Let’s just say I’ll be really glad to see the physical therapist Monday!
- I/we got Phoebe’s eye medicine done three whole times! And her exercises twice.
- I helped a new artist with some of her questions and assured her that she could, indeed, put a handprint in her painting even if that particular symbol hadn’t been covered in the official guidance. And I grinned almost as big as she did when the hot pink handprint actually appeared!
- I soothed my soul by adding lots of prayer dots to my own Work-in-Progress painting. And I did them with my fingers which is even more kinesthetically empowering than with a brush.
- I also finished a prayer scarf and rolled the yarn and cast on the stitches to start knitting the next.
- I helped a friend work through some of the stuff on her own list.
- I took a moment to celebrate, despite my creaky hip, letting Luther in the door, at his request. This big guy found his voice just after he lost his sight.
The email people who, as it turns out, were trying to shame and blame me into hiring them to make choices for me, probably wouldn’t be impressed.
That’s okay. Stephen Covey taught me that any individual thing on my list is two of the four categories, above. And it’s up to me to decide which two.
You can play, too!!!
And I’d add just one more question to the list analysis. For things that haven’t gotten done yet (In case you’re anything like me!) just ask yourself:
Could you______________________? Would you? When?
Then, go for it! (Or cross it off the list!!!)
ps… In case you didn’t know, today is the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene! Really, really dark chocolate???