#18 - Zap the Map

Stop. 

Stop using Google Maps on your phone. (or whatever app you use).

It's killing your brain. 

Let me explain. 

For years now, I've used Google or Apple maps for nearly everything. If I need to go somewhere, I type in the address, and I'm on my way. Boom.

It tells me routes, when to turn left, and when I'll get there. It's the most convenient and tempting way to get from Point A to Point B. 

And it's turned me into a zombie.

When I map from another city or some distant location to my house, I listen to everything it tells me to do, like an automated robot. Which makes sense for the first few hundred miles. 

But even when I'm a few miles from my house, I find myself continuing to listen intently and follow its every command. 

Lately I've found myself doing this and get annoyed. "What the hell am I doing!? I don't need this. I can think for myself." And I close the app. 

Suddenly, my pride kicks in. My autonomy. 

Where was it all those other miles?

Which is why, about a month ago, I decided to stop mapping while I'm driving. 

I wanted to practice driving the way it used to be, where you would look up at the street signs, and calculate distance in your head, and know which way is north, and just make a decision of where to go.

And what the heck, even get lost, and have to make a U-turn, and learn from your mistakes.

I want to use my freaking head for crying out loud. 

I want for the unthinkable to be able to occur, for my phone to die, and for me to still be capable of functioning as a human being with real skills.

Now, here's a side note: I do use the app to find my route before driving. I study it to see where I'm going before I'm on my way. And if I absolutely need to, I'll pull over and study it some more. (Let's be honest: there are obvious safety lines we cross when messing with our phones, even if it's not "texting." Pulling over helps me feel safer in this way.)

So that's my challenge to you. If you can, pick your head out of your phone and just drive.

Study the map ahead of time. Be prepared and trust yourself.

I'm willing to bet that with your eyes, ears, and brain, you have everything you need to get where you want to go.    

#17 - Letting

Letting go can be difficult.

I have these boxes in my room stacked taller than me. My goal is to get rid of most of the things in there and downsize and minimize.

I went through a couple of them tonight and found a lot to get rid of. 

And quite a bit to keep. 

There are classic toys, books I love (or used to love), concert stub tickets from 2001. I had to keep some of that stuff. 

They are memories. Some of them even have a direct connection to my grandma. One was a receipt of the last thing I bought with her. 

Yet they don't actually bring me any closer to my past or to anyone else. 

Letting go is hard. 

I was talking to a close friend this week about the nature of relationships.

And how as you get older, especially after college, those relationships tend to change. 

Sometimes a lot. 

They evolve. They take a different form. 

I resist this. I want things to be the same. I want to keep a strong connection. I want to hold on to the idea that our lives still have some strong commonality.

Letting go isn't easy. 

Somehow when I was younger, I came to see myself a certain way. We all do. We figure out what our identity is and then it sticks, like a plastic candy wrapper clinging to your shoe that you can't shake off. 

I've spent several years and have invested a lot of intention into shifting my paradigm, and altering the way I see myself. 

And yet I find myself saying, "Oh, I could never do that." 

"Who, me? Someone else would probably be better."

....Seriously? I'm really giving airtime to these thoughts? I know better than that. I no longer adhere to that mentality. 

Letting go takes time.  

I was thinking of other phrases that start with the same word.

Letting go.

Let it be. 

Let it show. We each have these amazing qualities and ideas and kindness inside of us, but we often hide them. 

We're embarrassed. We assume others' qualities are better.

But all we need to do is let them out. Let them show. 


Letting go, as has been mentioned, can be a challenge. 

But maybe it's the "letting" that's the hard part. 

It's such a passive word. It shouldn't require much action or thought. You're just "letting."

Allowing. Giving permission. 

Like the keepers of a canal or a bridge permit a ship to pass through. They don't have to pull or push or coerce the ship. They just have to allow it. 

It sounds so easy. 

But it's actually one of the most difficult things for us to do. Letting.

Maybe there's an opportunity here. 

Perhaps there's something that you have trouble "letting" in your life. 

What would happen if you gave up some control there? 

Shifted your expectation? 

Chose acceptance and patience?

As for me, I'm still working on it. I'm trying to be open to change. To allow relationships to connect and disconnect. To see myself in a new light. 

It may not be easy. But it might be for the best.

#16 - Love me a ton or to the moon and back

I was going over a math problem with my students, and we were converting units and trying to solve it. 

After we did, I looked at the board and I wondered aloud: "What does it mean when someone says, 'I love you to the moon and back'? 

A quick Google search reveals that the moon is 238,900 miles from the Earth. So the moon and back would be 477,800 miles.

That's a lot to love someone.

Personally, I would drive a few hundred miles, maybe a few thousand out of love. 

But what if someone told you they loved you to the moon, but not back?

Now from what I can tell, the general expectation is a round trip, so I think a lot of people would be offended.

But that's still almost 300,000 miles! Shouldn't you be happy with just one earth-to-moon distance? Or maybe it's that you need to come back or else you're stranded there forever?

Okay, forget about the whole moon thing. How about 'I love you a ton'

Hmm, so you love me 2,000 pounds? I wonder if in other countries they say "I love you a kilo'? (No, seriously people in/from other countries - do they?)

What if someone says I love you a quarter ton, or I love you 100 pounds - would you feel cheated?

Back to the original scenario, how is love best measured, in distance or in weight? Is the ton of love greater than the lunar voyage, or vice versa?

After about 30 seconds of this, my students were begging, "Can we just do math problems already??"

Ha - it worked. Genius. 

We moved on, but afterward I kept thinking about it. How do you measure love? Is it with time? With money?

What is your time worth, anyway?

It seems silly to try to calculate these things and put values on them, but we do. 

But are they really worth that? Can they be measured?

I'm mostly posing questions, because I don't have the answers. Not for you anyway. I'm too busy trying to figure them out for myself. 

But I do know that some of the most valuable things are perhaps infinite. 

Time may be finite, but we all get the same handful of seconds every day. 

And as for love, well that certainly could be an endless supply. Is there a way to run out?

So maybe we should love people to the moon and back. 

And then some. 

I mean, why not? Whatever the measure is, if we're doing it right, there's more where that came from. 

#15 - Whatever you do, don't choose the $5 tank top.

I was at Target tonight, tagging along with my brother, and I wandered into the tank tops. 

(Yes. I live dangerously. Wandering around Target with a credit card in my pocket.) 

After two seconds in front of the display, I saw a red one and thought, hey, I don't have a red tank top, I only have a blue one at home. And it's so deliciously soft. And it's my size. 

What better way to kick off the summer? For $10 bucks. That's pretty good.  

I decided to get the baby-soft, perfectly-fitted crimson bro tank, and, at first, everything was fine and dandy.

Until I found a different tank top - on clearance. Only $5. I mean, it wasn't exactly my size, but it was only 5 bucks. 

Uh oh. This was a toughie. What was I to do??

Yes, I do know that this story is a simple, if not silly, example of a difficult life decision. Yet I believe this situation exemplifies more significant moments in life. The same logic I use here can be applied elsewhere.

So I actually let myself wrestle with this one a bit, and attempted to bring all my decades of hard-earned experience and wisdom to the table to answer...

Which item should I choose?

Well, I thought to myself: let's examine my options. 

1) Do I buy the red one, in my size, for $10? Was it worth expending a double-digit amount of my hard-earned cash? Remember this was my first (and, at one point, only) choice, and one with which I was already satisfied. 

2) Or do I get the grey striped one, in a slightly larger size, for $5? 

The second option was tempting. It was half as much money! (That's like....50%!) It was quite prudent to be reducing my expenses like that. It wasn't too big, just slightly, and it was also pretty soft and nice. (see: anything can be rationalized given enough time). 

There was a third choice, actually. My other option, not stated, was getting nothing at all. But let's break this down. Choosing nothing can be a wise move, but can also be chosen immaturely and irrationally out of impatience and frustration. Just forget the whole thing, this is stressing me out, I'm not going to get anything. This could look a lot like avoidance. 

Yet, it could also be demonstrating self-control - resisting an impulse. Being big enough to walk away. 

Examined closely, this third one was more complex than it appeared.   

Well, shipyard shishkabobs - where in the heck do we go from here?

At this point, with all these possibilities weighed together, my life-experience voice was yelling something at me very clearly: the most tempting option was the worst one. 

The $5 tank top was the impostor. 

It was the choice that should elicit the same feeling as the good guy in the movie who turns out in the end to be the bad guy, and you get hit with the sinking realization that twists your stomach and tells you - run. Get the hell away and alert the authorities and don't look back. 

When you shake out all the options, the $5 tank top is the one not to choose. It's the safe choice, chosen simply because it's safe. It's the watered-down compromise. It's trying to please everyone and make everyone happy. It's the choice that plays into the fear of stepping out, of taking a risk, of letting go of something good to leap to a life that's better.

Don't. Whatever you do, don't get the $5-grey-striped, slightly-too-large tank top.     

There's always that option in life. The cop out that lets us rationalize anything really, because we were too lazy or too timid to do what was right, to do what we truly wanted.

I have too many shirts in my closet (literally, and figuratively - "shirts in my closet") that I purchased because I told myself a story in the store, a story that sounded nice but wasn't based on the truth. As if I didn't want to let that shirt down by rejecting it back to the shelf. I didn't want to hurt the shirt's feelings. But if I were truly honest with myself, I would admit that I'm not totally in love with it, so sorry-I'm-not-sorry, I'm putting you back, I'm leaving this store empty-handed. It's so much better than collecting junk I don't really want. Either love it, or say goodbye.

And yes, the third option actually is a choice. Don't just avoid a situation. But you can decide to walk away. Be decisive about it. I'm deciding not to make this purchase. I'm choosing responsibility. I'm choosing self-control. I'm choosing a story based on the truth. 

Or, do what you had already decided to do from the very beginning, do what was in your gut all along, do the thing that you knew would make you happy before you gave in to doubt and second-guessed yourself. 

Do what I did, and buy the damn red shirt.  

#14 - Decisions, decisions

I was thinking today about small decisions.

Small decisions that, if you look at them a certain way, are really big ones. 

In middle school, right before 8th grade, my brothers and I didn't know what school we were going to the next year.

We had heard about a brand new school opening up. No reputation, no history. I don't even remember who we heard about it from. 

Anyway, if any number of events had happened differently, it's likely that we would have gone to another school, and never thought about it again. My whole life would have had a very different trajectory. Many of the people I know would be strangers. Much of my personal and professional history would be erased and replaced with something else. It's hard to imagine. 

Or if my grandma had not moved across the country with four kids in a station wagon, bringing my mom to Arizona. It's extremely likely I wouldn't be here today. A different choice would have jeopardized my entire existence.  

Or if I had taken an internship in Washington state instead of California. Who knows where that would lead?

When I younger, these thoughts overwhelmed me. I wondered if wearing a striped shirt instead of a cleverly worded graphic T would somehow set off a chain reaction to alter the course of human history. And don't get started about which way I combed my hair. 

But even the big decisions don't have to be overwhelming. They don't have to be heavy and burdensome - what if I choose the wrong thing?

Instead, maybe a different choice can open up new possibilities. So make a choice - you never know what cool, amazing, wonderful thing could result from it. 

Like me. :D

#13 - In the Pit of Despair? Take the escalator.

(This post was not actually written this morning, but earlier this month on a particularly wretched morning. Spoiler Alert: I'm feeling much better now.)

This morning I woke up feeling awful. Not physically sick, but in every other way I was not ready for the day. 

Downtrodden. Overcome with despair. Hurt. It was the culmination of several recent events and circumstances that left me feeling pretty awful about my life. 

Nope. I was not ready to face the day. 

Now before you grab your streamers and balloons to help decorate my pity party, and ask me "aww, what's wrong?", just hear me out. That's not what this is about. This isn't about how I felt, it was about what I did about it. 

I knew that I felt awful, I knew I was feeling sorry for myself, but I also knew that I didn't want to stay that way. I wanted to feel empowered and do something about it. 

I considered all the things I so often tell others (despite, ironically, my recent blog post warning against giving advice): 

• Choose your attitude
• Don't focus on the negative.
• Think of what's in your center of control, and decide to take action. 

Ya know, that sounds WONDERFUL. Just fantastic. But it did not help my mood. It seemed an impossible task, as if this bad mood was an enormous boulder sunk down in the pit of my soul and I was to lift it up or roll it out. 

It wasn't budging. 

I also knew that just showing up to work wasn't good enough. It wasn't enough for me to just slog my way through it. I was supposed to be the inspirational teacher and advisor in a room with dozens of kids. 

I could possibly fake a pleasant attitude. I could force myself to say positive things. But you can't fake patience. You can't fake genuine warmth and energy. You can't pretend to be truly calm and caring.

I had to change my attitude and make it REAL. 

Oh boy. 

I didn't have much hope, but, ready or not, I threw myself forward. I did whatever I could to change my situation. 

I started by going to bed prepared the night before - I recognized my mood and anticipated a difficult morning. I stayed up a little bit later to make sure I had a clear plan for the day, because I knew I would be frazzled if I felt unprepared. 

I made sure I got a decent amount of sleep. It wasn't the most restful sleep because I was distressed and angst-ful, but I woke up fairly rested. That couldn't have hurt.  

I made and ate breakfast even though I don't like to eat when I'm under stress - I lose my appetite. But I knew I would need it for the day. And I brought leftovers for lunch to keep my fuel for the afternoon. 

Keep in mind, I'm doing all this feeling pitiful. I want to curl up in a ball and punch a pillow as I cry into it, probably resulting in unintentionally punching my own head but it would be OK because it's how I feel inside anyway. 

So even though I was feeling worse than Conan O'Brien after he was inexplicably let go from the Tonight Show in 2009, I was systematically and deliberately choosing actions that I thought would give me the best chance at surviving the day.

I made myself food, and made myself eat. I made myself sleep. I didn't know if they would work, but it was my best shot. 

Then perhaps the most useful thing I did was I wrote down affirmations when I woke up. I've realized that, even though I feel a bit like Stuart Smalley, these are really helpful for me, especially in the morning. 

Even His Airness needs to talk himself up. 

I wrote down a whole page. Here are some of them that I believe are worth sharing:

• Today is a New day. 
• I will spend my time in the present - not the past, not the future. 
• I am paying attention to my heart and inner voice. 
• I am an awesome teacher. 
• I am an excellent listener, and getting better. 
• I have a healthy, able body. 
• Criticism does not have to stick to me. 
• I am free from judgment. 
• I get to choose my attitude. 
• I am thankful. 

The day was still difficult, but I was surprised at how patient I was with the kids. I came in confidently and in control. I was FUN. I brought energy and insight. Individually, I probably had meaningful conversations with a dozen kids throughout the day. I got lost in my head a few times, sure, but I caught myself and returned to be predominantly present and focused on being a positive force for the community. 

I was amazed looking back at how I had started the day, and where I had ended up. To be honest, in five years of teaching, it was one of my best days in front of a class full of kids. No joke.  

What if I had chosen differently? What if I had not chosen at all and just let the day happen to me? What if I didn't have the tools and the experience to know how to respond to some pretty negatively powerful emotions?

I am thankful that I had the tools to create my own destiny today. And I look forward to showing my students, and others, so they can do it, too.  

(Please leave a comment here or on Facebook if you have a similar story to share and what you did about it. Or you can send me a message so I know you read it. Thanks as always for reading!)

#12 - A World of Small Wonders

I woke up on Sunday and wrote this in my journal. It's like a blog post, but on paper. Here's the online version.

I'm sitting up in my bed on Sunday morning. My light is off and the blinds are drawn shut, and yet the crack in the blinds lets in a few odd spots of light. Not the stack of parallel lines one would expect, but a few irregular blobs.

I was sitting there thinking, almost meditating with my eyes open, my mind rested and clear, my body calm.

I gazed at one of the shapes of light, directly ahead, and mused that one of them looked like a dinosaur...like a baby cartoon T-Rex. And I was just enjoying looking at the thing. A pleasant, ambient light starting to fill the room, and this one shape in front of me.

And as I stared at it, I began to notice the light that gave it shape was changing - not the shape itself, but its composition. Irregular lines and mixed patterns slowly panned left across the dinosaur's outline. It was like the film in an old movie, where the frames move across. I thought maybe my eyes were just adjusting, but I knew it wasn't my imagination. I could clearly make out the variance of light. And I surmised that there must have been clouds passing overhead, pushed by south or southwest winds...and the puffs of moisture and particles were chugging along, filtering the light passing through my window.

I considered for a moment that it could have been tree leaves affecting the light, but the movement was constant, smooth and never repeated. The ever-changing pattern was moving left the whole time. Which meant that this must have been a spot unobstructed by any branch...the sunlight was going through directly. I started looking around at other blobs of light and noticed an amalgamation a few feet away. I saw one had tiny shade spots dancing back-and-forth, swishing across the backdrop of light quickly. 

Swish-swish-swish. 

Ah, the leaves. There they are.

This whole spectacle on a lazy Sunday morning made me appreciate the small beauty around me. I say small, but it's really quite big.

I mean, think about it. This little light show in my room, which I would normally miss because I was rushing or cranky or too busy, could occur because a giant star, which is a burning ball of gas 93,000,000 miles away, sends light that travels a mere eight minutes to get to our planet, which gets filtered through our atmosphere and the ozone layer, and finds its way through a break in my blinds into the bedroom where I am. But not before having to cross a line of clouds slowly crawling across the sky like a row of taxis inching along the freeway. And the interplay between this caravan of clouds and the rays of sun is what creates the funny moving picture in front of me. And I get to enjoy it in the comfort of my own pajamas.

The world around us has a magical quality to it, and if we stop to notice and enjoy, we give ourselves a chance to be filled with wonder. And connecting with this wonder is the only way to have a chance to have a wonder-ful life in a wonder-ful world.

It's all around. And I bet you'll feel wonderful when you stop to enjoy it, too.