Remember: Mind over mind

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 6:00 pm (Writing by Ear)
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The latest stop on my ongoing (oft-detoured) journey to “get healthy” has involved taking Pilates and yoga through our local health system (that means “hospital” to us plain folk). I’m almost done with my second 8-week session with the same Pilates instructor — she’s great — and 5 weeks into my first session with the yoga instructor.

The last (and first) time I took yoga was almost 5 years ago — a community college “self-enrichment” class, and I didn’t remember a whole lot about it. But I had high hopes for this one because of my good experience with Pilates.

I’ve been disappointed — the class is so slow-paced. The instructor is nice and inspiring in her own way (she’s 61 and looks 50), but not very dynamic. And while it’s relaxing, I don’t feel I’m getting much of a workout. (In contrast, I sat in on the yoga class my Pilates instructor teaches after my Pilates class and was blown away. Talk about a workout. I’ll be taking her yoga class next time and, sadly, foregoing Pilates — just can’t handle two hours of classes back-to-back.)

One thing the yoga instructor does do is emphasize the mental aspects of yoga. She includes a “meditation” for each session, usually focusing on some aspect of positive thinking or feeling empathy for others or being present as we go through life.

Along those lines, she prefaced last night’s end-of-class meditation period by saying she has a little sign at home that reads:

Don’t believe everything you think.

If I take away nothing else from this yoga class, I’ll always remember that. It’s just the thing for a glass-half-empty, has-to-be-reminded-to-be-positive, needs-to-count-her-blessings kind of thinker like me.

Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.
~ Henry Ford

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Come to think of it…

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:29 pm (Writing by Ear)
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We all know the power of suggestion is, well, powerful.

Hear someone mention an itch and you start scratching.

Go on a diet and that junk food you normally ignore won’t leave your mind (oooohhhh, cheezy-whatsits….must have cheezy-whatsits….and dip!).

See them making Crockpot Italian Wedding Soup on a PBS pledge drive and here you are making meatballs for Crockpot Italian Wedding Soup at 8:00 at night, even though you’ve never made wedding soup before and don’t even order it in restaurants.

Give up coffee for Lent and the smell of Fat Tuesday’s grounds in the trash, normally gross, is suddenly irresistible. (Ash Wednesday down, 45 days to go.)

And yawns…contagious.

But why isn’t there a flip side? Why can’t the power of suggestion work for good, too?

As I was spending a couple hours this afternoon getting the new sewing machine up and running…(too bad no film at 11:00 — quite the sight. What the…? Why won’t the spool fit on the doohickey? Why is the doohickey so short? Are they making new spools these days? Should I have gotten different thread? Why is it wobbling like that? And look, it just flew off! What the…? Oh. The doohickey pulls up and gets longer. Now the spool fits. Never mind.)

Anyway, as I was frittering away what should have been a workday (had I had any work), I could have been — should have been — figuring out ways to get more business. I should have been e-mailing some clients to see if anything was in the works. I should have been updating my Web site — maybe actually writing some professional sort of blog. I should have been reading a book about marketing (if I had one) or about writing. Or even cleaning out e-mails and going through files.

That’s what my smart friend was doing. While I was joining Twitter (God knows why — I know only one other person on it), she was using her downtime to teach herself XML and HTML and actually enhancing her already considerable skills.

She was busy being productive, while I was busy being crafty.

But, I have to admit, the power of suggestion (or is it the power of guilt?) is powerful strong. I’m thinking I better get on the stick tomorrow. After all, I have a hefty tax bill to pay, regular quarterly taxes due at the same time,and a new craft habit to feed, not to mention feeding Mike, myself, and the catkids.

So. E-mails, Web site enhancement, professional development, office organization — that’s the plan for tomorrow. Unless, of course, someone out there has a better suggestion.

There is no allurement or enticement, actual or imaginary,
which a well-disciplined mind may not surmount.
The wish to resist more than half accomplishes the object.
~ Charlotte Dacre

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$3900 from my pocket to…whose?

Friday, February 20, 2009 at 2:01 pm (Hack for Hire, Writing by Ear)
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I was fearful of doing our taxes this year. I was fortunate enough to have a good year last year, largely due to one client. (The same client for which I am still working off part of that income and that now has a moratorium on hiring external writers and a 70-day payment policy on any work it does approve.)

I spent all day this past Sunday filling out the “tax organizer” our accountant uses to prepare our returns. Today, I got the word from him: We owe $3900. This on the same day I read this article in the WSJ and almost burst a brain vein.

So, you might say, Well, if you earned it, you have to pay on it.

It’s not like I haven’t been paying my taxes all year.

Every quarter, I sat at my desk, wrote the check, and sent the federal government an average of $1300, based on last year’s income, which is how you do it when you’re self-employed. I wrote two more checks to the state government and the local government. So, yes, I’ve already paid $5200 in federal taxes just for myself, not counting what Mike “contributed” through direct withholding on his paycheck.

I worked hard. I had my best year ever (after almost 10 years of self-employment). And now I get to pay for that success.

And you know, we didn’t squander the money. The vast majority of it went right to our ongoing house projects.

Yes, my fellow Americans, we are working hard to improve the modest, fixer-upper home we bought almost 4 years ago.

We didn’t buy a brand new $400,000 house we couldn’t afford. (We didn’t even buy a $175,000 house we couldn’t afford.)

We put about 6% of our income into our 401(k)/SEP-IRAs (and we all know how well that turned out).

I pay for my own health insurance. (Mike’s employer had been paying for his health insurance. But we just found out that his insurer is no longer offering small-group coverage. So now we have to find a new policy for him, and possibly pay more for that, too.)

We drive older cars so we don’t have car payments.

We pay off our credit cards every month.

We shop mostly at Wal-Mart, with an occasional foray to Sam’s Club.

We eat out more than we should, mostly at the bar down the street (it’s cheap, and it feels good to support a local business).

We use coupons a lot.

We gave a few hundred dollars to various charities, and donated items to Goodwill.

All in all, we are responsible citizens.

We seem to be in the minority.

I have one question:

Just which one of our bought-more-house-than-they-can-afford, not-working-and-on-welfare, decided-to-have-8-more-babies, lived-the-high-life-on-credit-cards-they-couldn’t-pay-off, “I-won’t-have-to-worry-about-putting-gas-in-my-car, I-won’t-have-to- worry-about-paying-my-mortgage” fellow citizens (or illegal aliens) should I make the check out to?

If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should
deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right,
it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.
                                               ~ Abraham Lincoln

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