2021-06-03 — Skid No No

Hey, folks,

I’m having trouble getting my brain going to say anything at all right now. 🤪 I got plenty of sleep (though my internal clock is completely messed up). I’m close to being on time to go to bed right now, but I’ve not even been up for 12 hours, I don’t think, so it’s not very likely that I’m gonna be able to fall asleep. I’ll probably be in bed awake for a long time like I was last night. Maybe I’ll just stay up and force myself to get up on low sleep, so I don’t have the issue of not being able to fall asleep tomorrow.

Anyway, it’s been another good day of the mostly light and happy kind, though the last few hours have seen a marked drop in that as I’ve chosen to drag myself down with a number of things–including taking the skid steer out for a little bit of work when I’d thought better of it (I knew I should probably be doing my work scheduling for tomorrow, which isn’t done now at all, not even close). The result of my going against what I felt was best turned out to be not only failing in the goal I had in mind, but getting the skid steer stuck in the damp dirt of the steeper part of the trails on a far side of the ravine. It took me a good little while to get out, and a beautiful little tree that I really liked got mangled because a 6,000 lb machine just kept sliding right into it, and I ended up having to run it over to get out. 😕

Poor tree. I really did like that tree. It was this beautiful little thing. Maybe only 15 feet tall, but wide, leafy branches. So full of life. 😕

So… that happened, and I chose to be frustrated that I got stuck, out doing something I felt like I shouldn’t even be doing in the first place, but I didn’t listen to the little voice. I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

Funny how incredibly often my ignoring that voice leads not only to wasted time but things going badly (like getting the skid steer stuck).

After that, I started trying to do some scheduling, and I was reminded of a customer who wrote a check that bounced, and three months later just keeps stringing me along. He was the customer that made me finally decide to never accept checks again (though I just did for a Korean War vet, and cross your fingers, I think it’ll clear). The guy who wrote the check that bounced had been a customer of mine multiple times before. I think this was like the fourth time I’d been out to help him, so I didn’t think anything of it.

Anyway, I let the aggravation build up instead of just cutting my losses and letting go. I’ve let it aggravate me for months now, and for what? A little less than a couple hundred dollars? Because my aggravation is so worth it, of course. Because of course there’s so much peace and happiness in holding on and holding on and holding on. 🙃

So… as of today, I’m letting go–officially. I’m not gonna ask him to pay me what he owes me. I’m not gonna ask him to reimburse me for the fee I had to pay for a bounced check. I’m just gonna let go, and leave it be. People steal from me. It is what it is. It’s been happening for years now. It’s the price of doing business. I try to protect myself. I can’t protect myself from everyone. Let go. Move one.

So… those things and some other stuff happened, and I let my happy upbeat state of being slide a good bit, but I’m fighting the slide, and… I think I’m mostly winning the fight. I’m at least able to smile, even if there’s some turbulence still rumbling around underneath.

Hmmm… I guess I sort of jumped to the end of the day today, but that’s been good because now I’ve chosen to let that go. I’ve now moved that conversation to archives, so I won’t see it when I do my scheduling, and… there we go. Let it go, let it go, and whatever other words go to that song that probably aren’t even applicable. 🙃

Let’s see… now that we’ve done that… what about the first part of the day? Though I got up late, I put first things first. I chatted with the Man Behind the Curtain, recorded myself reading some things that are spiritually important to me, so I can listen to them while I do other stuff. I chatted with my friend Cory for a good little while about important things, and I think that was really good for both of us. Good gospel stuff–powerful principles that I know I want to apply in my own life.

I can’t really think of what else I did today, honestly. It’s sort of a blur, so let’s… be grateful. 😊

#1. Though I lost a little tree I loved, I am grateful that I managed to get my skid steer out from where I was stuck on the trail without ending up at the bottom of the ravine first and without having to figure some crazy way of getting the thing pulled out.

#2. I’m grateful for a great conversation with Cory. I know it was meaningful and helpful for me in my own life and choices that I’m trying to make, and I think it was for him as well.

#3. I’m grateful to be able for my little $3 headphones. Periodically, I find someone on ebay who’s selling my favorite JVC marshmallow earbuds that are like $20 normally for $3 each, unpackaged, maybe even used, but I don’t care. Their great. And I’ll buy like 10 at a time and then just sock them away. It’s nice to have them for when I’m working on heavy equipment or riding the lawnmower, or driving, or whatever.

#4. I’m grateful for Gary (my Hill brother in law for taking his time to go and fix the road when our tractor is temporarily out of commission. That was soooooo awesome of him. Sooooo awesome!

#5. I’m grateful that have been able to have take so much time off work to just sort of regroup.

Oh! Thought! I’ve meant to write this a couple times and keep forgetting: It’s interesting to me. In my last job, there was a method of practicing that I recommended to the students and professionals (court reporters and broadcast captioners). It was to take a dictation, and write it very slowly, getting all the fingering perfect and precise, so that they could write it all the way through with 100% accuracy. Then they were to increase the speed a little and practice again until they got to 100% accuracy. Then increase, and increase, and increase, etc., until they were able to write the dictation at the fastest speed it was able to be played at 100% accuracy. That allowed them to get the muscle memory down accurately, and that would help them be better writers as they would do that over and over.

I’ve been making the connection in my own life. I’ve buried myself for so long, hectic schedules, barely hanging on, and I’ve said, but I need to learn how to be able to handle these things, these stresses.

But… why not start the same way I recommended to the reporters? Get the basics solidly down. Master them at one level before I go off and bump myself to crazy high levels.

So I’ve been thinking a bit about that, and I’m working on that. Get the basics down. Slow life down however much is necessary, so I can get the basics absolutely solid.

Daily Accountability:

The Positive

1. Clean 10 days.
2. Doing my exercises to combat the negativity–mostly focusing on the addiction stuff, but still, it’s good. And when I don’t do the pushups in the moment (which is when is most important), I’m still going back and doing them later as a reminder to myself that I need to do them. I can’t just ignore the triggers/negative thoughts that come in. And exercise is a great tool to use because I need it anyway.
3. I made the choice to let go of that last bounced check. Toss it to the wind. Let it go… let it go…
4. I’ve just been settling into better perspectives overall. Taking the time to zoom out.
5. When things were starting to slide south, I worked hard to get them back… north. Uplifting music, pushups, etc. I’m… making progress, folks. And I’m excited. 😊

The Needs Improvement

1. 10:57…
2. I chose to ignore the little voice that said, you really should just do scheduling and call it a day. Can’t do that. I ignore that little voice far too often.

Well, folks another day is passed and gone. It’s been meaningful for me over here. I hope yours was for you over there.

Loves and hugs! 🙂

Lift the World.

~ stephen