Little boy tired. 🛌
Slept in a bit, as has become the norm, unfortunately. I got up in time to wish my sister a good morning, after waking up early, I think around 5ish? When Hans left for work because I went to bed with the doors open to help the van cool off, now that I have the screen over the double doors on the side, but I certainly woke up with a start when he fired up his engine. 😅
Got up, I said goodbye to my sister. Took the trash out of the house and out of my van, including Little John’s contents.
I think I’m leaning toward shifting how I handle my little John contents. I’ve been disposing of it I think once every two weeks? But I think I’m going to dispose of it once a week from now on.
Anyway, did some morning routine stuff.
I’m struggling a little bit with my morning routine. I have these things that I want to accomplish, but when I put them as part of a checklist, which is super helpful for remembering, it also ends up being a source of… evidence of falling short? I don’t know exactly what the term is. I was more positive when I didn’t have the checklist, but without the checklist, I’m not very good at remembering the things that I want to be focusing on.
I feel like it’s important for me to make and keep a schedule.
That’s a message God gave to me a good while back. Perhaps it doesn’t apply anymore because it’s been years since I got that direction, but it would make sense that it would still apply.
I think I just need to learn to be better at not allowing my struggles to live up to what I hope to live up to to deflate my enthusiasm and peace and whatnot.
It’s totally just a matter of perspective, but I have I think perhaps a little bit baked into my DNA the desire to get everything right all at once… to have it all be perfect right away.
One of those perspectives that I want to overcome and master.
And I guess the truth is that I’m not really bothered by the items on my list that don’t get a check mark on any given day. I’m actually much much better than I used to be in my perspective and just letting things go and being okay with the worthy effort that I gave instead of focusing on where I still fall short of my own expectations for myself.
So I guess that’s a long-winded way (or long inked? 🙃… wait… it’s all digital… 🤷) of saying that I’m doing well but still could use some work in being able to be totally okay with my sincere and worthy effort even when items on the checklist don’t get accomplished.
That said, major success today in my efforts to focus on some of those things in my checklist. One of those items on my checklist is to spend time each day specifically thinking positive things about other people. I’ve got a little list of people, and my checklist item is to spend 5 minutes going down the list and just thinking positive things about each person on the list.
Today was the first day I actually managed to accomplish that item on my checklist, which is one of my morning dailies. 🎉
I think one of the challenges for me is when I see something on my list that’s been on there for weeks or weeks or months that I’m still not getting to that’s really important to me, such as working on my book. I’ve only had a handful of successful days, if even that many, where I’ve been able to check that item off my list, and that’s one of the tippy top priorities of my life right now.
I just… haven’t actually treated it as the tippy top priority.
It’s so much easier to default to giving my energy and effort to lighten other people’s loads in more immediate ways instead of the hefty mental and spiritual effort that it takes to pull together abstract concepts and seek inspiration and revelation on how to go about writing this book and what to include in it.
Speaking of yet another day, coming to the end of the day without having spent time working on the book, today was another one of those days.
I didn’t work enough last week to maintain my standing with JustAnswer, so instead of being “on the right track,” I’m back to being on the edge of demotion.
And with 3 days already in the books for this cycle, I only have 4 days left to do enough to maintain my being-on-the-edge status, or hopefully, getting back to being “on the right track.”
So I spent some time today answering questions, but instead of sitting in the trailer answering questions, I spent a bunch of time outside trying to make progress on the drain field area.
Working on the drain field area was pretty frustrating today because I chose to go against my better judgment. Neighbor Darrin came over, seeing me toiling away with a pickaxe and a metal rake trying to scrape up the compacted dirt off the top of the grass that was buried underneath it, and he offered the use of the skid steer that he’s renting.
He suggested using the skid steer to scrape up the dirt that was on top, and level everything out.
My better judgment said I had already tried that, and though physically more exhausting, it was going to be better to just continue going by hand.
But I wanted to be a pleaser. I didn’t want to say no thank you to his generous offer, nor tell him that using the heavy equipment for this more precise work was not going to do what he hoped it would.
So I went and borrowed the skid steer, and once again, I ended up making everything worse and making it take even longer.
My brain is built for efficiency, but sometimes efficiency isn’t what’s best, and every time I’ve tried to be more efficient using the heavy equipment, I’ve made everything worse.
I was so close, so close to being done and to having saved a ton of grass, but no, I had to go and try and be a pleaser, and ruined most of all the grass that I’d painstakingly worked to save, and i think actually added more work for myself.
I just need to be able to stand up and say, no, it’s just not going to work the way that we hope it will. It seems slow, but in the end, it’s going to be better to do this part of the job by hand.
Really discouraging and frustrating today. I was pretty mad at myself for choosing to be a pleaser instead of just doing what was best.
Queue the thought of the day below. 😅
Anyway, I spent hours out there working and reworking stuff that I’d already done. So. Much. Wasted. Time.
There’s that perspective again… wasted.
It’s not wasted. It’s experience. It’s given me perspective and hopefully determination not to repeat the mistake.
Stand up for what you believe, Stephen.
In the end, I was able to make at least part of the drain field look decent. Lots and lots of Hard work. Lots of sweat. It’s been humid here lately, so I’ve been pretty sweaty instead of just hot.
And especially working with long pants and long sleeves and a big old hat… Trying to take better care of myself. I don’t much like putting chemicals on my skin, even if science and society says it’s fine (sunscreen). Science and society have too often said years later that something they once said was good they now realize is not… and I figure. Probably would have been better to wear sunscreen than to have let the sun do all the damage that it did over the last 9 years, but it’s too late now, so I can only work with what I’ve got at this point, so it’s long sleeves, long pants, a massive sun hat, and gloves.
In the heat. 🙃
Hans got home right about the time that I finished the Eastern section. That’s the one that’s most visible from the road because it’s the one right next to the road / driveway, so it makes the most difference in the instant gratification, so to speak.
There’s still a lot more to do. But I feel like I’ve just done so much damage that it’s going to take a very very very long time for the plants to grow back in any meaningful degree.
😞
Oh well.
It at least looks okay for the moment. It’s just… not what it could have been had I just done from the beginning what I felt was best, and I think it’s taking just as long or longer this way.
Poor decisions again and again and again.
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like that’s just about all I’m capable of these days. Seems like I mess up just about everything I try nowadays.
That’s probably why it’s so hard to get going on anything. I think there’s probably in the back of my mind somewhere the fear, born from plenty of perceived precedent that I’m just going to fail anyway.
Want to overcome that.
Headed out about 5:30ish to go to the JH Keith Park to take a dip before heading to Wyoming for Temple Tuesday.
But it was busy. One car already there, and another that pulled up a little bit after I pulled up.
I wasn’t feeling very social, and it was basically just wanting to rinse off and get my sweatpants and sweatshirt soaking wet in order to act as my air conditioner for the long drive toward Casper–I drive that includes facing the evening Sun for most of the drive.
So I didn’t stay at the park there but headed down the road to Cascade falls, which was yet another poor decision, as there were probably 15 cars there.
I mean, I guess it’s not a poor decision. I was able to accomplish what I went there to accomplish. Soak in the water. Cool off. Rinse all the sweat out of my sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt, and walk away soaking wet so as to have plenty of available evaporative cooling potential for the drive.
Successful. Just… much more crowded.
From there, I headed on my drive, and it’s late at night once again because even though I got here at a good time, I’ve spent the last hour and a half, or so, watching YouTube videos.
They’re really good, informative, and inspiring videos, but not best for what I should be doing right now which is sleeping.
Not really looking forward to the gym tomorrow. Those mega workouts are exhausting. 🙃
But I know I’m going to be happy that I went after I’m done.
Gratitude:
- Though it was a rather less effective effort today, I’m grateful that I was at least able to make some progress on finishing up the drain field effort. So. Much. Effort. It’s crazy how one single piece of information, not knowing that we should do the middle trench first, completely finishing it and filling it back in before doing the outer trenches, would turn what should have been maybe a two or three day job into one that is lasted weeks. Whoops, that’s not very positive for a gratitude point.
- I’m grateful for my phone and for the alarms that I can set that go off every day is reminders of things that are important to me.
- I’m grateful for the YouTube content creators that have such wonderful content to learn from. I do wish that everyone who made content would have actual primary sources cited for every single explanation and claim that’s made, but… Very few content creators seem to go to the effort of backing up what they say with solid, cited sources. I want sources. I don’t want to listen to a podcast, hear a really cool perspective or interpretation of something only to find out later that they omitted key information that completely shifts the perspective in my own mind. That happens on a fairly regular basis, and I dislike it quite a bit. Good gravy! There I go again being negative on a gratitude listing. 😅
- I’m grateful for being smoothies. 😊 Get a whole bunch of protein from the beans and peanut butter and soy milk. Definitely more filling than the fruit smoothies. Perhaps not quite as tasty, but still pretty good. 😊 I’m probably going to experiment a little more with other recipes.
- I’m grateful to be safe in my travels.
- I’m grateful that it’s Temple Tuesday tomorrow. 😊
- I’m grateful for my bug screen, to not have a whole bunch of flies in my van to have to deal with before going to bed, so they don’t wake me up early in the morning at first light when they start to fly around and land on my face while I’m trying to sleep.
- I am deeply grateful to have the sobriety perspective that I have now. It used to be that I was willing to play with fire, and I don’t mean in the areas of my addictions specifically. There were other areas of my life where I knew I should be doing something that I wasn’t doing or knew I shouldn’t be doing something that I was going, and acting knowingly, and I know that I have no claim on the power of God to keep me clean when I willfully push aside the whisperings and nudgings of the Spirit. Generally what ends up happening at some point is the Spirit will call my attention to the fact that I’m doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, and I’ll just sort of push the Spirit away and keep doing it anyway… And when I do that, it’s like the slippery slope toward relapse, even when that thing that I’m doing that I shouldn’t be has absolutely nothing to do with my addictions. I’ve recognized this time the profound truth that it is God who is granting my sobriety, that it doesn’t matter how much I do of myself, no matter how many boxes I check, so to speak…Â …”But for the grace of God go I.” Often times, I’ll get a little warning from the Spirit: If you keep doing this, you’re going to relapse. In the past, I think my attitude was more nonchalant, as if I were the one with the power. But I’m not. I can’t do this of myself. It is God’s grace that sees me through, and He is trying to teach me to to be humble and to trust Him. …and I’m finally getting it. I hope I can maintain it. I hope I can get it more and more and more over time.
Success:
- I gave a sincere and worthy effort.
- Though I was frustrated today at myself for my choices to be a pleaser, and the consequences that arose from those choices, I handled it better than last time.
Improvement:
- Though ridiculously hard for me, if I want to become who I say I want to become, who I truly do want to become deep down, I must be able to put the things that are first priority in first priority, no matter how intimidating or PTSD triggering they might be.
Thought of the Day:
Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.
— Tony Robbins.
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I felt what I understand to be the Spirit today, in just a little way while listening to one of the videos I was listening to. I’m grateful for that.
Sometimes I live in periods of great illuminating light where revelation flows freely and with great detail.
Sometimes I live in what feels like a revelation vacuum… Where I just have to remember what experiences I’ve had.
I wish I were one who had more faith. I seem to require a steady stream of spiritual experiences just to hold on to what I believe.
But that’s okay. Faith is a gift, and it’s not a gift I possess right now in the ways I’ve had it in the past and will have again in the future.
But I’ve had the sufficient number of experiences such that I don’t think it would be possible for me to ever walk fully away without turning my back on my own integrity.
Good night, my lovelies. It’s closer to midnight than it is 11:30, and I really want to be asleep now. 😅
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 