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  • Green grass and Birks

    The Slant

    On practicing being who you already are

    July 24, 2019

    Preface: Between a few extra busy work weeks and planning for vacation to Green Bay next week, I felt like I didn’t have anything substantial to share today. But I’m on a 4-week streak of

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    • These two. They waited up for me to get home on Thursday night, and when I did, my mom immediately started playing two clips of Inside Edition she had been saving for me: a story about a 107-year-old man who drives a Mustang and a baby who hates quinoa. It was 11:30pm. . We got minorly snowed in the next day, played a lot of Phase 10, and started Virgin River on Netflix—or as my Dad calls it, “Neckflix.” On Saturday my mom and I shoveled and went to Trader Joe’s, we all watched more Virgin River, and, as per new tradition, went to the Applebee’s across the street for dinner at 4:30pm. We came home and finished the first season of Virgin River and at the end my dad asked, “Can you put the name of that show into the computer and see if they’re making more?” . My heart fills and breaks a little bit more every time I get to see them these days, which feels like part of the privilege of loving people. It’s perpetual hope for more seasons, the kind you can’t verify with the internet, while savoring every ordinary detail of the one you’ve already been given.
    • Kicking off a busy week with a fancy lunch. Crispy skillet pan pizza from @kingarthurflour topped with almost every item from the grocery store’s olive bar. 10/10 would recommend.
    • A slow, snowy Saturday morning filled with many wonderful things, including: rising bread, simmering soup, and the magical feeling of freedom that comes with the start of a three-day weekend.
    • When you live in a state with one hundred Winter Weather Advisories for every one Winter Weather Event, days like today are especially nice. Welcome, actual winter. We’ve been waiting for you.
    • A reminder for myself and anyone else who may be similarly afflicted by Goal Setting FOMO at this time of year: There are plenty of wise, self-disciplined people in the world who thrive on systems of self-improvement. I am not one of them. And yet, despite the fact that 90% of the notebooks I own are filled with two pages of robust goals and nothing else, I’m still tempted to keep making new versions of old goals—all as doomed for failure as the last. Goals aren’t bad. But for me, most of the time, goals make me believe that my life will be better if I _______. The blank ranges from drinking more green smoothies to meeting with a financial planner. They’re all good things. But they’re not the main things. And they become unhelpful things when they subtly parade around as the keys to unlocking a better life. So here’s the goal I keep coming back to, because I keep needing the reminder: I want to stop trying to force my life into a marginally better state, and instead, start paying better attention. I want to be present and honest and wholly focused on seeing the good. I want to be less concerned with becoming a better version of myself and more concerned with being my actual self, and experiencing my actual life. My actual life—right now, not in some improved future state—is already beautiful. And I miss the beauty most when I cater to the belief that I need to do more to make the most of it. It’s far more likely that I need to do less, and appreciate more.
    • May your days be merry and bright. And may all your hot chocolates be topped with floating peppermint meringues. (Thanks for this, @tori_bakos.)

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