Habits of Variety

I noticed recently that I've been trying to live my life according to two conflicting principles. On the one hand, I am always trying to give my life the structure of good habits. I journal every day, I write a blog post once a week, and I am currently working on the habit of washing my glasses every morning. I like not having to make the decision every day; instead, I made the decision once and act on it again and again, preferably without having to think about it.

On the other hand, I want to fill my life with a variety of different experiences. I suspect that life seems to go by faster the more each day is filled with familiar things one can experience without noticing: unlike our first few months here in Leiden, when everything was new, the last year has flown by at a terrifying rate. And sometimes a lack of variety can be dangerous: eating the same thing all the time can lead to vitamin deficiencies, and exercising only some muscle groups can lead to imbalances.

I haven't yet fully sorted through how much I want to do intentionally and how much I would like to mentally automate. But it occurred to me that it's also possible for a habit to promote variety in one's life. For example, a friend of Clara's planned her meals around whatever organic produce was on sale that week. That simple rule allowed her to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables from week to week without having to specifically plan out a rotation.

photo by Carol Moshier

Then I realized that I had developed some habits of variety myself without realizing it. There are several ways to bike from our apartment to the opposite side of Leiden, and instead of going the same way every time, I fell into the rhythm of going one way when on my way to work, another way on my way to Dutch class, and a third way for Bible Study, even though it didn't make much difference to the travel time. That way I'd keep visiting different parts of our beautiful city without having to plan it.

I also exercise using an ipad app that takes you through a different combination of exercises every time you use it, and which is designed to gradually ramp up in overall difficulty as you get stronger. In the past I've gotten bored by exercise routines that are basically the same week after week, but this method has let me practice both consistency and variety in my physical fitness.

In each case, the habit is tied to a regular trigger that varies: which produce is on sale, or what day of the week it is, or what exercise the app tells me to do next. I think that's the key to making the behavior both habitual and varied.

Here are some other areas of my life into which I'm thinking of incorporating more habitual variety. Suggestions are welcome!

Fun spending:

It's inefficient to spend money on the same fun activities every week if the fun gradually diminishes. What are some ways I can make sure my money goes toward a variety of experiences, while still keeping to a tight budget?

Chores:

I would love for chores to be one of those habits I do without thinking. I wash the dishes every day, but how often am I supposed to dust behind the refrigerator or clean out the junk drawer? It's hard to make a habit out of things that are only necessary once in a while, so how can I make sure I'm getting to everything regularly without thinking about it too hard?

Relationships:

At this point in my life I've accrued a lot of friends from all over the world, but it takes more effort to keep in touch with the ones who are farther away. (This is especially relevant to me now, as I prepare to move to a new home over four thousand miles away.) What are some ways to habitually reach out to more of my friends, and not just the ones it's easiest to talk to?

What are your ideas? Do you have any habits of variety you've found helpful?

Who's Your Driver? Thoughts about Feelings

Riley's driver is Joy

A couple weeks ago I saw the new Pixar movie Inside Out, and was as I expected, moved to laughter and tears, but like the best Pixar movies it also made me think a lot. In the movie, we follow a 10 year old named Riley, and we experience her life mostly through her emotions (the characters, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust.) Without telling too much of the plot of the movie, one of the interesting things for me was the little peeks we get into other character's brains. For most of her life it seems like Riley's driver (the emotion in charge of the control desk in her mind) is Joy, but when we get to see into Riley's mom's head, her driver is sadness, and Riley's dad's driver is anger.

Riley's parents' emotions

When my friend Linden asked me and Owen, "Who's your driver?" it surprised me to find that recently the emotion driving me forward has been fear. That weird little purple character in the movie, frightened of everything. In a lot of my life I think I've varied between different dominant emotions—it's a pleasure to have had joy as a driver for so much of my life—but I like that one of the messages of the movie is that it's okay to have another emotion taking a turn at the wheel. In Inside Out, Joy keeps trying to push Sadness away, out of Riley's head, and that's a really normal thing in our culture. The number one thing parents want is for their children to "be happy" but this movie says (and I think they're right) that sometimes you need to be sad. And when you are sad, sometimes you really need to express that, and you need people you trust and love, who will still love you even if you're not feeling the way they wish you could feel. (For more on this topic see the excellent book, How to Talk so Kids will Listen, and Listen so Kids will Talk.)

But what does it mean to have fear as my driver? Nothing makes me feel more like a child than fear. When I had lived in the Netherlands nine months, I melted down sobbing because I was afraid that (not kidding) no one would come to my birthday party. People did come, and I had a wonderful birthday that year, but looking back I am amazed at quite how scary the thought of "I have no friends" could be, even as an adult. A lot of the experiences that helped me mature into an adult were doing things that frightened me or seemed challenging in some way, and then excelling in those challenges. Now that I am an adult, life is scary in different ways. The next step isn't usually clear. My support system doesn't necessarily have experience in my situation, and so it's hard for me to parse through the various advice I'm getting. Instead of people around me telling me to go ahead and take the challenging opportunity, there is so much cautious advice. When I was younger I felt like everyone was telling me to reach for the stars, and now there's a lot more "that sounds like a lot of work, be careful—don't get too involved, are you able to pay for that? How will that work with having kids?" Not exactly advice to combat fear.

In her book, Bossypants, Tina Fey tells some of the hurdles in her own life in hilarious and compelling detail. Near the end of the book she compares her own paralyzing anxiety about her work and the possibility of having a second child to two small Greek children her mother once babysat. These children had never been out of their parents' care in their entire lives, and were desperate, crying inconsolably. After hours of this, the seven year old Christo cries out in Greek to his little sister, "Oh! My Maria! What is to become of us?" which send's Tina's mother running out of the room in a fit of laughter. Those children are going to be fine. Tina Fey's gynecologist tells her simply, "Either way, everything will be fine." It took hearing those words for her to see that (to anyone with a real problem) she must look like the terrified Greek children; nothing to worry about, but worried out of her mind. Either way, everything will be fine. "But, but, but, what if it's not?" I still want to ask. "What if something terrible happens? What if the thing you desperately want isn't the thing you get? What if you work, and work, and work, and nothing comes of it? What is the people you trust and the things you depend on turn out to be not as dependable as you thought?"

Children's book edition of Maya Angelou's poem

In the Psalms, I read that my feet are set on solid ground. That God is my refuge and strength, if mountains are thrown into the depths of the sea—even then "we will not fear." And on one hand I believe it, but it is also hard, because I do fear—even when the mountains are firmly rooted in place. Elsewhere I hear that perfect love casts out fear, and I believe that too, and I am glad that loving is something I can do, something others already do around me to build courage, and tear down fears. Right now, I'm going to try to be gentle. Gentle with other people, and gentle with myself in the face of fear. But I will also try to check in and see which of my emotions is driving as I make decisions. One of my friends wrote me an email full of stories from her life, but also a bit of strong encouragement. She says she tries hard not to let fear control her decision making, and I'd like to do the same.

Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou (excerpt)

Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.

I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

More about Letters--This time with stories.

Last blog post I wrote a lot about writing letters, but looking back at it, I wish I had included some more stories about really special letters I've received. So here are some stories.

When I was deciding which college to attend, a friend of mine wrote me a letter. She was a Houghton student, and studying abroad in Orvieto at the time, and she wrote me this sweet little letter on tiny sheets of graph paper, with maybe a drawing tucked in? The letter wasn't a glorification of that school, just told me about all sorts of things. Weird things- pizza with the homeless guy who lives in the woods, the lovely things- the deep and important relationships with professors, special opportunities that I should look for and things to consider as I look at different schools. The letter itself didn't convince me to go to Houghton, but my friend's writing it certainly influenced me in my choice. It was pretty special to get that sort of attention.

Some of my favorite memories of getting letters are from friends from Deerwander, a really excellent Bible summer camp up in Maine. I remember one of my friends writing to me after 9/11, telling me her feelings, her fears, how shaken she felt. Another friend was telling me about her decisions about college, taking time off, thinking about professional ballet and wondering/fearing what the future might hold. (Just a few weeks ago she graduated from medical school with an emphasis in surgery.) These letters from Deerwander friends were full of recommendations of books, encouraging scripture quoted, lateral thinking puzzles to think about, questions still unanswered, written out prayers for each other, and they were what made it feel like we were still friends, even though there were (and are) many miles between us. A bunch of us started writing letters when we were still in high school, going to Deerwander every summer, and one day I looked across my bench and happened to notice that all six of the people sitting in the row with me had handwriting I recognized from letters we'd exchanged.

After returning from studying in London, I had a strange summer of backwards homesickness. I missed London, missed it dreadfully, and didn't see much of friends with me in my hometown. So many of us wrote long letters to each other, full of shared memories, of hopes for future study, of crazy pipe dreams of living in London again. Those letters were also full of companionship, where we wrote in depth about what we love about each other. I know that sounds corny, but the group of thirty students that went to London together came back strangely unified. We'd eaten together, struggled with difficult texts together, written papers with each other's help and encouragement, sung together, and with each other had had one of the most formative experiences of any of our lives. For me, I know it was the first time I felt liked and accepted by a whole group. I'd been a bit of an outsider growing up. I had some very close friends, but not friend groups, and even in orchestra or acting groups, or homeschool classes I felt a little too serious, a little too far from a normal teenage existence. But the London group was different. My friends knew me well, and liked me, and that was a rare gift. Writing letters that summer felt like a way of holding onto that community, even as we knew it would get diluted back on campus.

When I started dating Owen, I remember making strict rules for myself. I couldn't reply to Owen's letters until I'd written back to all my other friends who'd written to me. Wanting desperately to not make being in a relationship something that hampered my connection with all my other friends. And I think that was a really good choice. I kept a connection with many of my friends, an intimate one. I knew when people were thinking about starting a new relationship, I knew the pain friends of mine were feeling as they struggled with a breakup, or a death in the family. I got letters which told me about the items on their windowsill, or the way they felt about classroom management with their 2nd graders.

I still get these letters-- not long ago I got a letter from a friend of mine who'd been struggling with depression and lack of direction for so long, and suddenly her life seems open and clear, and it was such a joy that I was beaming about it for the next week. I get letters from my nieces, the littlest of whom needs grandma to write for her, but the older one can write to me all by herself, and I like thinking about letters as becoming an intergenerational thing. That I'm allowed to write to people older than I am as well as those younger than me, and that we can have a relationship through that. Sometimes when I get a letter, I take it somewhere special, all sealed up, to a park, or to the couch with a cup of tea brewed. I remember the surge of joy when I'd see a letter from Owen--when I was finishing my second thesis he started writing me little short notes more than once a week. They were funny and sweet, and getting them was such a joy it was almost painful.

In a way my love of letters is part of why I write this blog. I know it's not the same. Nothing like the same sort of intimacy, as it's open to anyone to read, and there's not the give and take of written letters, but I have always preferred sharing my thoughts with other people to journaling privately. I like to try and tap into what other people are feeling, and sometimes a good way to connect is to share stories of your own.

So there are some stories about what letters have meant to me. Thanks for reading.