Food From a Hungry Ghost

Money spent: I bought breakfast, paid off a debt, paid for gas.

Food: I bloated after a banana today.  I ate dairy once.  Breakfast was a croissant and coffee.  Lunch was salad catered at work by Chopt (I love their Mexicali vegan dressing).

Exercise: only stretching today.

3 things I’m thankful for are my mindfulness practice, hand rubs, and for not procrastinating on my homework.

This morning I felt regret that I had not taken time to reflect on writing last night.  Last night was a good night.  It seemed a loss to not commemorate it, and odd to not count it among the many other, frequently harder, nights.

I’m finding a peace in the way I approach this space.  It’s a journal.  I feel less guilty about not being a professional bard here.  The point is less about being showy and more about the function of writing things I’ll want to remember.

I’ve noted resentment when I’ve been doing dishes lately.  It’s been interesting to see that and no immediately act on it.  It’s perfectionism biting at me, demanding I give up because I couldn’t start at a certain time.  It’s reactionism telling me that doing my homework so late in the evening was someone else’s fault.  These are powerful forces.

Tonight I got to tell myself I’d write to reflect on the day after I was done with my homework.  I managed to do all of it before 9:00 PM (including an assignment that was pushed back to next week).  Today at work I rescheduled some car maintenance to follow my bosses feedback on a project.  I’ve been listening to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and it felt like the principled thing to do.  I reflected on my initial reaction to demand that “Well if they want me to come in they can pay to rent me a car,” or “I need to get my car fixed so they need to just deal with it.”  Neither of these reactions is principled; they’re self-centered.  Similarly, my impulse to ignore my boss’s directions was rooted in my self-esteem and not in the value of his directions.  Thing is, even though ignoring my impulse each time was met with a lot of internal pangs, once it was over I didn’t have the weight of any regret.  That’s liberating.

I can get better at this.