The Decompression of a Boomer

Blame it on the … New Year? I just can’t get myself back into gear. I did finally log-on to start another blog post and began with a working title: “New Bog II.” Huh? Freudian slip there? Bogged down with my writing, am I? Geez, I let two months lapse since writing my last blog and now I can’t even spell it? BLOG. There. Call that a new start for an already ‘old-already’ New Year.

Where have I been all year? I recall the frenetic marching of the Christmas Holidays into the New Year. I recall on about January 5th backpedaling five days in my mind to come up with legitimate ‘New Year’s’ resolutions. I was in my car, idling at an interminably long red light, restraining the dog, who was barking furiously, even baring his teeth, at the expressionless lady in the car beside us, when my mind wandered to ponder the state-of-my-life, so far. New Year’s Resolutions? ….. Hmmmm…..How about … “Ditto!” … Done! Green light! I cruised on down the road with steadfast resolve to keep on keepin’ on whatever I was doing, uh, at the beginning of November, was it? Whatever it was I was doing before the Holidays hit, was working for me, at least retrospectively, from the ‘flipped-over-Christmas’ side.

By mid-January I began to suspect that ‘Ditto’ as my New Year Resolutions was not fulfilling it’s purpose in getting me back on line with my life. Where did the first two weeks of January fly to? Beyond frantically ripping down the Christmas decor after our sons left and shoving it all into the basement crevices, and then sucking about 10,000 tree needles out of the carpet into the vacuum, and then successfully unclogging the vacuum, what have I accomplished this year? Hmmm. This exercise is tough on brain cells … A lot of puttering, I guess. I wasn’t so worried about anything until recently, when I glanced in the bathroom mirror and said to myself, looking back at me, “What’s up, Lardass?” Huh? Say what?

Have you ever tried kicking yourself in the butt? It’s physically impossible. Maybe set yourself up in front of a giant, ancient, warfare-sized catapult with a young, strapping catapult operator to crank it (and subsequently you) into action. See if you can be catapulted, preferably out of your skin if you are lazy, and into the skin of a super bright, super achiever. Now, if, at this juncture, you, the reader, are still in need of jump starting yourself into the now-old New Year, but you don’t want to commission the ancient, giant catapult as your medium for advancement, then you might consider plan B: checking out some self-help books at the library.

Which is sort of where I’m at. I found ‘GABB’: The Great American Bathroom Book – Vol. I – a 606-page volume of single-sitting summaries of all-time great books, comprising nine libraries of the classics. Library #2 in this volume contains two-page summaries of about every classic written on ‘Personal Effectiveness.’ I sat and read all the summaries, while watching a football game on T.V. (multitasking!). I had read several of the books. (Like, The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, eons ago.) Learn about “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” (by S.R. Covey) and “How To Get Control Of Your Time and Your Life” (by Alen Lakein) or “How to Put More Time in Your Life.” (by Dru Scott, PhD.)

Read all those summaries, like I did, and you’ll likely still be as organized or disorganized as ever. But you might feel more knowledgeable about how to get more organized, or feel comforted just looking at the book, knowing that you could become more knowledgeable about getting organized or improving yourself really speedily if you wanted to. Or not. You might find one tip and run with it. For me the tip came from ‘How to Put More Time in Your Life.’ : “Create a list of what you want more of, and less of, in your life.” Right off the bat I can say that I want more closet space in my bedroom and less dog barf deposited on the carpets, without having to kill the dog.

Honestly, I want to write more than one blog entry every two months. With less narcissism. I really don’t want to be catapulted out of my skin. Because I’ll still be stuck with my insides. And if I’m going to decide on more resolutions in the future they’d better be more specific than “Ditto.” That is, if I ever hope to improve myself.