I did the dishes this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 This is no small thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t really done them for 7 months…\u00c2\u00a0 P and S and mom did them.\u00c2\u00a0 But S is in San Diego.\u00c2\u00a0 And my apartment is quiet and empty.\u00c2\u00a0 And the 48 hours of dishes were slowly building up.\u00c2\u00a0 And I took 10 minutes before I left today, and did them.<\/p>\n
I started a mediatation class this monday.\u00c2\u00a0 Its Yogic.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is a little weird for me, b\/c it involves God talk.\u00c2\u00a0 I just think of it all as a metaphor.\u00c2\u00a0 But there were some really good things that the really cute young monk talked about.\u00c2\u00a0 One of them was the idea that you are always either reinforcing or correcting behavior.\u00c2\u00a0 Every decisions reinforces that behaviour.<\/p>\n
The monk used the example of cupcakes from Billy’s Bakery.\u00c2\u00a0 He obviously loves them.\u00c2\u00a0 If you walk by and smell the wonders of the cupcakes, and have one, the next time, you will want one.\u00c2\u00a0 You will be habituated to them.\u00c2\u00a0 If you go in then, you will almost expect to do this again and again. You get the ball rolling, and it rolls on its own inertia.<\/p>\n
Conversely, it is hard to bring yourself to meditate at first.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems painful, and hard.\u00c2\u00a0 But the second time it is easier.\u00c2\u00a0 And the third even easier, and before you know it, it is just part of the routine.\u00c2\u00a0 You get the ball rollling and it rolls on its own inertia. Or at least that is the idea.<\/p>\n
So washing the dishes is a big first step in getting the ball rolling.\u00c2\u00a0 Tomorrow it will be easier to do the dishes, and by next week, it will be no big deal.\u00c2\u00a0 Returning to the New Normal is hard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I did the dishes this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 This is no small thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t really done them for 7 months…\u00c2\u00a0 P and S and mom did them.\u00c2\u00a0 But S is in San Diego.\u00c2\u00a0 And my apartment is quiet and empty.\u00c2\u00a0 And the 48 hours of dishes were slowly building up.\u00c2\u00a0 And I took 10 minutes before … Continue reading I did the dishes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,41,31,44,8,5],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-update","tag-apartment","tag-back-to-daily-life","tag-brooklyn","tag-hope","tag-meditation","tag-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}