Okay, I’m down to the wire. If anyone tells you that writing a book is a breeze, they’re off their rocker.
So Easter is Sunday and my boys’ birthday is Monday. My minimalist-hairy man wants nothing, my the-more-the-better kid wants the birthday hoedowns that I produced when they were kids. Sheesh. ♥
Pearl One
It’s 1923, your family lives in New Mexico, and there’s no money for anything but food. Your mother has tasked you with cleaning the dirt-floor.
You use the broom, but couldn’t get it as clean as you wanted, so you pick up floor-clutter by hand.
Now it’s 2023 and you’ve tasked yourself with cleaning the floor. If you’re one of the fortunate, you remind yourself that the cleaning crew arrives tomorrow.
Not that fortunate to have a house cleaner? Well, maybe you’re lucky enough to own a Roomba so you switch it on and let the darling go to work.
But, fresh out of cleaning crews or Roombas, you do have a wondrous cutting-edge vacuum cleaner. You turn that baby on and roar through each room leaving clean floors in your wake.
The right tools matter.
Attempting to lose weight – and protect your loss – after age 50 requires the right tools. You’re not part of a poor family living in a dirt house.You have the money to buy a cold-tote, amazing book-desserts, smart food that you love, beautiful measuring cups and spoons, gorgeous tableware (found for a song at a thrift store), new muffin pans if you need them and so on and so forth.
This is not the time to be stingy with yourself. Get the tools you need for this rigorous trek we’re making up the Matterhorn. ♥
Pearl Two
It’s my belief that we live in the loneliest time in history. Not so long ago, we lived in groups. Human beings weren’t built to be loners living in cabins deep in the woods.
Today’s version of “a cabin deep in the woods”, is not leaving the house, Netflixing for hours, and making constant trips to the kitchen. I mean, we have friends. On Facebook. We stay engaged with life. On Instagram. We get amazing advice from others. Podcasts.
They’re calling it the Loneliness Pandemic and it was alive and well in our world long before Covid. Here’s my take: it wasn’t so long ago that we lived in tight knit groups like villages, and before villages, we lived within a band of cave people working together to stay safe and find food.
For all of the downsides of caveman-life, the upside was belonging.
The phenomenon of “it takes a village” came so clearly to me when my parents were first moving into their assisted living home.
As they were moving my dad in text said to me, “We come from a generation that try our best not to rely or depend on our kids or interfere with their lives as we grow older.”
I responded, “yeah, but think about it. All ages once lived together: grandparents, moms, dad, kids, babies. And everyone worked together. Maybe not your generation but the gazillions that came before your group.”
At the time my sister and aunt were working hard to help my parents and I was trying to point out that family helps family without saying, “Stop being so proud and take the help!”
But – per usual – I agree with me. Our culture is lonely. That elderly man on Monday who wanted to chat about cantaloupe at the grocery store? He lives alone and hadn’t spoken with anyone all weekend.
The 50-something year old woman who shows up at the dog park every day like clockwork? The outing with her dog is the one time she sits down and has long chats with anyone IRL.
And from long ago, I remember Lucille Ball talking about being on a plane and looking down at the zillion of tiny homes below thinking, “Any one of those houses would welcome me in with a red carpet, and yet – I’m paraphrasing – “I don’t have one person who really knows me to go home to.”
So, you know how I recently wrote about the Perfect Storm of Weight Gain being the result of a food-porn culture, the powerful diet-cartel, along with our own wobbly self-esteem? Well, we can add a fourth storm to the mix: the age of loneliness in which we currently find ourselves.
This is my point: we buy the coolest looking car, purchase a gorgeous home that sits on a hill, pack our wardrobes in the prettiest of clothes and we still know exactly what Lucille Ball was talking about.
I’m not suggesting that if you take your therapy dog into the children’s home every week your eating and weight problems will dissolve. You’ll never hear this sort of thing from me.
That said, if we’re feeling crushed under the tonnage of loneliness the brownie fudge ice cream in the freezer will continue to call our name every evening.
Consciously write in your journal about how you’ll begin — in detail — to make it a habit to increase how deeply and often you engage with others. ♥
Pearl Three
In April we’ll take a deep dive into Atomic Habits by Mr. James Clear. Today we’re looking at – one of my favorites because duh — The Law of Least Effort.
James Clear writes, “Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.* Out of all the possible actions we could take, the one that is realized is the one that delivers the most value for the least effort. We are motivated to do what is easy.
*James says in the asterisk, “This is a foundational principle in physics, where it is known as the Principle of Least Action. It states that the path followed between any two points will always be the path requiring the least energy. This simple principle underpins the laws of the universe.”
My point: if you bring home the Ho-Hos and place them in an easy-to-reach cupboard, the principle of Least Action tells us that no doubt what you’ll do next.
However, when the Ho-Hos first hop into your grocery cart, just throw them like a major league pitcher back onto the shelf, and then the Ho-Hos won’t make it into your home.
Because you have no intention of driving to the store to hunt down the Ho-Hos, you end up having the cut strawberries — already in the fridge — with a whipped cream hat for dessert,
You see, the Law of Least Effort loves us and wants us to be happy. ♥
Pearl Four
They say that this woman was a badass, but the word barely touches who Virginia Hill was to the world.
Her story, A Woman of No Importance the Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell left me absolutely floored.
This book falls into the historical non-fiction genre and the author knocks it out of the park having researched and written the book in such a way that you can almost feel the Gestapo just steps behind Virginia as she flees France.
Due to this book I will never again say, “but I caaaaaan’t, my foot hurts” or “I’m too tired to do such-and-such.” Yes, we need to honor the challenges in our own lives, but the woman didn’t even receive certain medals once the war was won. Her opinion was, to paraphrase, “none of us did any of it for medals.”
This book will make you proud to be a woman and bonus: you’ll look at your own problems in a new light. ♥
Pearl Five
“We must remember. There is no easy way.” – Ryan Holiday ♥
Have a wonderful weekend, All!
♥, Wendy
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