First Quarter Update

Since the Patience month ended up being a bust, I thought I should review what's been going on with the first two month's exercises.

Happiness:
I'm pretty sure that no one (including me) would say that I'm suddenly a happier person than I was in April. But I do think I'm making strides. I've continued to record a Happy Moment for each day, although it hasn't become the ingrained habit I had hoped for: I often forget for a few days and have to go back and think of something. But I always do, so I think it's working pretty well.

Hope:
I came to a realization as I walked with hubby and baby tonight. It's important to note that we were walking across the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis, and from the middle we could turn around and just glimpse some of the destruction of the fallen 35W bridge. Of course, we'd seen it on TV, but I wanted to go there, to be part of it, if only momentarily and from a distance. What I realized was that I was not really raised to think of myself as a part of something bigger. I never really watched the news; my family was never involved in "community events" -- except church. Without getting into the baggage of church being my only "bigger world" (and believe me...), I just want to say that Volunteering and Donating are not just things I need to adjust my schedule and budget for; they are reasons that I need to change my whole thinking of time and money. I need to put myself in the middle of a world that is bigger than I, yet a world that -- from the middle -- I can possibly have a small and significant effect on.

That being said, I thought of the perfect place for me to volunteer: the Children's Hospital. I would love to do art projects with kids: friendship bracelets, origami, melt-a-beads. It's perfect. That's the one thing I miss about the job I had before I got promoted to management.
But then, just as I was figuring out how I could work a few hours a month into my life, the mail came. And in it, was a packet of Community Education classes. I have no intention of taking any, but I took a look anyway. And there was a class called "Raising a Resilient Child." The description says, "This class focuses on ways to foster hope and optimism in young children." Hope and Optimism; I hadn't thought if it that way. I guess that's kind of "hope for the future," but it also involves hope that right now, things can turn around and suddenly get wonderful. Optimism. I guess, as a pessimist, it makes sense that I didn't think of that.

And though I'm not entirely sure how to suddenly bring optimism into my life, the class concept made me reflect a little on the parenting thing. Motherhood is the whole reason I'm doing this experiment. And yet, there's something very counter-intuitive about giving up my precious working-mother "free time" to anything but my daughter, especially during her first few years. I think if I had been volunteering before, I would now take some time off to spend with my baby, and no one would hold that against me. And so, rather than feeling that I'm letting myself off the hook of feeling guilty for not volunteering, I think I've actually dodged the bullet of guilt for not spending the few hours a week I have with my daughter had I started volunteering. Does that make sense?

Patience:
So, I let this one go, and I guess I should consider it failure. But I did spend 21 days at least thinking about being more patient; that's more than most people. And for that, I think I deserve a modicum of success.

So, there it is. The last 3 months in review. Not a soaring success, but then, if it were, you'd probably know I was lying about something.