Three-Toed Goof-off

Ten days to Christmas. I've done nothing - no tree, no cookies, no shopping - for the holiday. I need to sweep the kitchen, too. Dust. Clean the commodes. And it's after noon already. I'll do it, I know. But in a minute.

No, I'm not sick. I'm not even that tired. I'm just lazy.

Today, I remind myself, only today. I'm dawdling. Rewarding myself with a little time off. I'm a workaholic, remember? This is not my default state.

Uh-huh. Is that what we really think? We who, as a species, will usually choose the sofa, a bowl of popcorn, and the mindless input of television over ... well, just about anything else? We have no real survival issues any more - no hunting of food, no hiding from predators, no mating imperative - but maybe because we're so "evolved" our instincts tell us we have nothing real to do. "Good times," they trill, "safe times." That triggers the impulse to store up against dangerous days ahead. Except there aren't any. And the more leisure time we have, the more we crave, and - suddenly - we find ourselves spiraling into a place of procrastination, obesity, and decay with a blank space in our brains where how-we-got-here should be. But we think just because we're not lazy everywhere, we're not lazy anywhere.

Sad thing is, it's mostly habit, and habit comes from environment as well as temperment. When Head Trip was a baby, and I was pregnant with Acid Trip, the Big Lug and I were on our way to the new duty station when we stopped in our home town. We were slated to spend two nights with my father, who had moved into a small house with the family dog after the divorce with my mom. I walked in with both arms and belly full of baby, and looked around - open area with kitchen and living room all together, gray carpet, not much for the baby to hurt herself with. Good. Needed a vacuuming (dogs shed), but I could do that. Dad left to work, and I took out the ancient canister vac.

Wait, you interrupt your preaching and philosophizing to tattle on Dad? How is this relevant to the current discussion? You just want to flaunt how far you've come, you -

Anyway, it didn't work. Not a hair moved. I tripped the latch on the vac, and - poomph! - the thing popped like a confetti balloon, spraying fur and dust everywhere. I couldn't find a new bag, so I cleared it by hand (gross!) and started again. It worked. The gray hair left the gray carpet and revealed ... cerulean blue beneath it. Seriously, in wide, nozzle-sized swaths. Blue.

Get off your high horse - it was actually kind of funny, and so him. It's not as if I didn't always know he wasn't the cleanest knot on the tree, especially after they split - remember the mummified frog in the spider web behind the toilet that weekend home from college? I hardly aspired to that. Besides, it was just post-divorce blues, right?

Oh, sure, there were reasons; there always are. Stress, thwarted lust or envy (I curled into a ball for awhile after that bookcase), a lull in the storm between what-a-week and crap-look-what's-ahead (lately), even too much sugar in our diets. This particular Deadly has so many causes ... and we have so many excuses for it ... that unless it's out of control or overly inconvenient, we don't seem to care. In fact, by sloth's very nature we almost can't care. We let inertia take over, and it's not until we're hooked up to an EKG watching our heart bob and weave its way toward a flatline that we start to pay attention.

Stop being such a drama queen. It takes a lot of energy to balance my emotions during this crazy time of life, and it has to be my priority or I might end up with divorce, too (or a prison sentence). I have a list of "must dos" as long as my arm, all the time, so something has to go - I jettison the things I don't like to do first. Okay, maybe for too many days once in awhile ... weeks ... but it's so easy to rationalize leaving the work, I ... no, I'm not lazy, seriously - I just need a reason to do the task, that's all.

So find one - duty, routine, money, or because it's the right thing to do - and then get up and do the work. This Deadly isn't just a sin, it's one that can kill us. And not just our bodies or our crumbling homes - this one kills our souls. All we need is get up and move.

Ugh. Fine. Then what?

Then you'll move more because you'll want to move more. We can get into good habits, too, you know. Eating sugar makes us want to eat more sugar, but eating vegetables makes us crave vegies. Wearing a size 24 is easy (so stretchy) but sliding into a 14 (seriously) has made me want to keep wearing a 14 ... or even a 12. And I'm thinking I could get totally hooked on a clutter-free home or a growing pile of manuscript pages. Yes, we need breaks, but it's about balance, and the easiest way to get it is just to start, then take another step, and another. The more results I see, the more gratification (good kind) I get, the more I want. Our minds, and our bodies, are strange like that.

I've noticed, and I do get it - all we want to inherit from Dad is the moralizing bit, right? Which means I hate you and ... sigh ... I guess we have a house to clean, huh?

Yep. And, uh, apparently not just the one with four walls.

Surrender, Dorothy

Two weeks ago, I went into my Wednesday thrift shop, a bit late this time. I was, of course, thinking about the jewelry - I knew there was something here for me today. Wrapped in my own little lust-ball, I tunnel-visioned my way to the showcases and found ... nothing at all for me, and very little even new. I was so convinced of a prize, I took my time and studied anything that was remotely intriguing. Disappointed, I went to the main floor, belatedly remembering I needed end tables, too.

And there it was. A bookcase, tall and double-doored, Mission style, absolutely stunning. I sprinted to my new love with bated breath. Smooth wood, not a blemish on it - brand new! Even better, the tag said $229 (and 25% off)! It was perfect! And it had waited just for ...

Someone else. The lower half of the ticket was gone. And the new owner was hovering nearby.

He saw my interest (how could he not?) and leaned in. "Look at the back," he said with a smile. I knew what I would find but I did it anyway and listened as my heart thumped to the floor. Stickley.

I felt it then, the icy inferno that burst from my toes to my scalp - envy. Oh, it was new Stickley, reproduction not antique, but in that moment I wanted to slap his grin off his face. I wanted to find a sledgehammer and destroy it - if I couldn't have it then no one could. I wanted to cry.

"I hope my wife loves it," he said hesitantly, concerned. "I don't know what I'll do if she doesn't."

"There's a lock," I said stupidly.

"It's beautiful inside," he said, pulling out the key.

"Can you believe it?" said another patron as the guy unlocked the doors. "He got there one second before I did." My green-eyed monster recognized his with a grimace that passed as a smile. "I've never been here before. Now that I know what I can find, I'll be here every other day."

"See the finish?" the new owner asked, running his hand over the shelves. "Do you think she'll like it?"

I echoed the movement and almost groaned at the silky, yet somehow rustic, feel of the woodgrain beneath my fingers. "If she doesn't," I said harshly, "call me first. Wait, I have a card somewhere ..."

"I spent more than I really ..." he murmured, not listening. "She's not going to ..." he blinked. "Yeah, I could always put it on eBay, or Craigslist, right? If she doesn't? Right?"

My heart skipped a beat, and I looked at him again with narrowed eyes. His smile - not a smirk, not a gloat. He was worried. How much of the price was holiday money, grocery money, rent money?

The drumming in my ears became louder, faster. I could get it for ... not the song it was originally (25% off remember!) but still ...

I briefly closed my eyes and sighed. "If you do - well, I've never seen a piece of Stickley, new or used, go for less than $600, and that was a tiny, tiny side table at an estate sale." I saw the other guy glare, make shushing movements. I wiped sweat from my lip, made myself breathe. "This piece is new but ... I don't even know where I'd start it. Stickley doesn't put prices on the web site, it's that high-end. Someone around here sells it, though, obviously. Find out what they're charging."

The worried husband's brow lightened a bit. "Really?"

"Yeah," I said reluctantly. "This was a steal." I forced the words out. "Congratulations. It's an amazing piece."

I swept away before I could do something stupid, like fall on the floor and hammer my heels until someone gave me one just like it.

Several days later, I finally let it go, thanks mostly to that last thought. Funny thing about envy - you want what someone else has, to the point of pain, sometimes, but you never want to work to get it. Lust, gluttony, and greed are all high-energy Deadlies - we'll work our butts off to possess the object of our want/need. Envy is passive, a magnified wish or a escalated yearning (that can turn into lust). Yet envy binds us into our own hell just as effectively, from the inside. The more we envy, the less we're satisfied by our current weight, possessions, job, or level of prestige. And the more we envy, the more we begin to rage at the unfairness of it all instead of work toward a better level.

I don't believe in fate (no choice in it), but I do believe in destiny. And, duh, I can't progress toward my shining future if I focus on someone else's, even for a moment. Usually, when I first feel the burning tickle of envy's sicky web, I snap to attention, count my blessings, then do it again, if needed. And once more in really bad cases - I've fallen over my own feet in my journeys too many times because of inattention not to. This time was harder than it has been in years, maybe because an easier path makes us take so many things for granted we get selfish. I don't know. But I forced myself to say the words ... out loud and endlessly and from the heart ... and eventually I came back, content, to the place I love - right where I am, in every way.

FYI, I did call my local dealer. That bookcase is currently on sale for $3,399 ... unless it was numbered, but those "went like hotcakes" (for much, much more). And I swear I remember a number.

Oh, God ... "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." Click, click, click. "There's no place ..."

Hey, if he can do it, I can, too, right? On my own path. Besides, my future is so very cool ...

The Dragon Within

Accumulating wealth is important in this day and age. We can't depend on pensions or governments or even spouses - how many times have we cringed at stories of widows and retirees forced by economic necessity to eat cat food or (worse) live at the mercy of opportunistic sadists in cut-rate retirement homes? Building a nest egg big enough to sustain us - and have enough cash in reserve for unexpected expenses and dreams - is one part survival, one part indulgence, and one part "eeooooo, gross", but, ultimately, it's really just simple common sense.

Some of us get a little out of whack, though. We grasp. We hoard. We backstab. We ignore responsibility and opt for power instead - not power over ourselves, of course, but over our pasts, our circumstances, and the people around us. When that happens, when the motive goes from duty and comfort to domination and malice, we've moved to a darker place - greed.

Here's a simple test - whether it's stocks, art, books, collectibles, or the truffle oil stockpiled in the pantry, ask yourself, "can I part with it?" If the answer is "yes," then do so, with at least one item, right now. Put it on eBay, donate it, send it to a friend, use it tonight for dinner, I don't care. But physically pick it up and at least move it to another place, one not carefully designated "my stuff." Did you hesitate? Can't do it at all? Then your answer wasn't really "yes," was it?

I was there last summer. The extravaganza was amazingly hard. My avarice tends toward accumulation for its own sake, maybe because I moved so many times in my life, or that we ping-ponged between lack and plenty for so long, I don't know. But I definitely have trouble getting rid of things, especially expensive (or seemingly expensive) items. I've been known to buy really good wine, cheese, or olives, then let them turn into compost because I'm saving it for a special occasion that never comes (because nothing's good enough). I crammed rooms to overflowing out of gluttony, but I couldn't sell it because somehow, in the holding I became a better provider or a better person than my parents were. I had things, I had resources, I had riches.

I had nothing.

I didn't know it then, and no wonder. Greed has been and is still rampaging through our world like a hungry dragon, but it's cloaked in socially acceptable clothes. It's not just about the few who screwed us, no matter what the media says; while there were certainly some major offenders in the current crisis, we were (are) all guilty little lizards. At least, I know it now.

That yard sale was an eye-opener for me, on many levels. First of all, I didn't pull everything I'd planned to sell - I just couldn't - and since the eBay market is more in the toilet than the stocks are, I'm still dealing with the remnants of that hesitation. Secondly, for what I did sell I made pennies on the dollar compared to what I spent (on things I didn't necessarily want in the first place, remember). Yes, a few items sold well, but mostly I gave things away. Thirdly - and this is important - I take more pleasure from the open space (and the knowledge that someone else is benefitting from my items) than I ever did from the things themselves. Yes, I still tend to back up like a clogged drain up sometimes (I need to go through my jewelry and my books again) but by focusing on quality instead of quantity I've made the process itself as important as the goal - I celebrate the hunt as much as the treasure, I buy for others almost as often as I buy for myself or my home, and you know I have a blast doing it.

We could have that same party every day, in every aspect of our lives, but we don't - and we should. Money, things, food, knowledge ... holding on to our personal dragon egg creates Hoover-sized dams in our streams of potential. Cash invested continues to increase (overall), but if you never spend it, if it does nothing but decorate your portfolio and give you gloating rights, then you will shrink. Your degree or certification is nice, but resting on those laurels isn't very productive - what have you done lately? Oh, and that bike, the one rusting away in the basement - you're not growing when you hold it hostage to your vanity and fear, especially since there's tons of kids out there who remember what it means to be a kid and feel the wind in their hair.

Hope and joy expand us, while avarice constricts. Greed hands us larger bottom lines and bigger inventories but makes us smaller people. We're meant to be channels for good - and for goods - not reservoirs. How can the daily treasures come to us if we have no room for them? Streams of potential must flow or they dry up, as they are doing now, and we all choke.

Start a recirculation revolution. Take up the flag and shout the battle cry - "What goes around comes around!" I'll open the canals with a shovel if I have to - the cure for this Deadly is generosity.

It's also the vaccine against it for the future.

More, More, More

A few years ago, I watched an episode of Mission Organization with a smile, as I usually did - who among us can resist that feeling of superiority when the door is opened or the basement entered and we see yet another smart, educated couple whose ocean of clutter makes ours look like a puddle? Isn't that the purpose of these shows? But five minutes in, my smugness faded, then vanished altogether. A cold chill swept me, and I wasn't sure why. All that had happened was the usual - the reveal.

Well, maybe not so usual. In general, the camera sweeps a kid-mess or inheritance mess or move-mess that the poor souls can't seem to deal with. This was an empty-nest woman who opened her spare room to the cameras to show ... bags. Full bags. Bags on and under the bed. Bags spilling from the closet. Bags stacked on bags. Bags bursting with stuff, with tags still on it ... from as long as two years before. It should have been funny, or at least made me feel good. But I felt ... no, it couldn't be ...

I bolted to our spare room and opened the door to - noooooooo! - furniture and boxes and piles of things, bought not in department stores but in yard sales and flea markets and thrift shops, much still wrapped in newspaper dated during the Clinton administration. A single glance showed me at least seven things I didn't remember buying, much less remember what I'd bought them for. I was scared to death to touch anything, and not just because the room was packed so tightly I couldn't even get to the far end without risking serious Twister-like damage to various muscle groups. What would I find?

I clenched my teeth, lowered my head, and charged past my fear. For three days my anti-chaos campaign reigned. From the door (latest finds) to the back wall, I went back in time, sorting with the show's criteria - the "keep" (much milk glass and kitchen ware) I either used or organized in labelled boxes, the "donate" and "toss" I ... duh. I then put in a bed with a headboard (bought the previous spring for $10), covered it with a pretty spread (a steal eight months back at $1) and have kept it mostly clear (or occupied by the grandkids) ever since. Of course my office is now boxes and piles and ...

Why do I do this? Simple. I'm a glutton.

From food to shopping to work to money to just about anything, I'm the queen of overdoing. Nearly every moment of every day, I have to fight the urge for more, more, more. This isn't lust, because lust is focused. And it's not greed, because there's no reward past the event. That woman didn't even remember buying most things in that room - and neither did I. It's as if the first drink, the first bite, the first item in the cart, the first "sure I'll take that in-home student" is a fog bank that we roll in to cloak the memory of the resulting bacchanalia.

That's what gluttony is, really - not a single incident or long-term, one-track obsession, but a series of benders. We always have remorse (or defiance), and we usually vow to never do whatever we did again. And then, when find ourselves over the top again (because we always do), we despise our weakness - which just continues the pattern, because we honestly don't know how to stop.

But that's the key - it's not about stopping. Lust is cured by abstinence. Gluttony is not.

Balance and temperance is the best and only effective weapon to battle this Deadly. Easier said than done, I know - really, I do know. From horrific debt to dangerous obesity to type-A working style, I've overdone it all. "I'll have just one," I'd say, and suddenly it's two, then five, then fifteen. Whether it's hours, Godiva chocolates, glasses of wine, pairs of stockings, it doesn't matter - and the worst part is, we can't reverse time and we can't fix whatever we binged on. Most of us don't remember anything past the first sip or penny or swipe of the dustrag anyway, because shame blocks it. And, unlike lust, it's because we can walk away from a gorgeous man or a BMW dealer but not from the practical needs (eating, spending, working) that we cannot seem to find the middle ground.

To complicate matters, it's also (for some) a matter of body chemistry. Unfortunately, the problems of the legitimate few make it easy for the rest of us to affix excuses. You don't want to hear this, but I can tell you from experience that any physical issues I had were caused by my original behavior, not the other way around.

One day, when my health and my bank account were both screaming in warning, I fought back by looking, really looking, at my way of life. And I realized that I was slamming down gallons of Pepsi not to create or to build, but to fill a void - an aching empty place in my heart that I still don't quite understand. One day I might figure it out, maybe even satisfy it. But until that time I will continue to successfully (mostly) fight the urge to stock an antique store or swallow an entire chicken by keeping a few things in mind: first, whatever that black hole is, I can't fill it with anything physical; second, it's easier to resist the siren call when I've kept a level blood sugar and I've had enough sleep (and, yes, going without sleep on purpose is a form of gluttony); third, if gluttony is about filling up, why not find a different gas station?

Let's face it, a whole lotta crap is still crap, while a single amazing thing will last forever, even if it's just in memory. I tossed the greasy chips and salty boxed food and invested in really good olive oil and pasta and fresh tomatoes instead. There are dozens of books and TV chefs who can show anyone how to cook quickly, within every sort of budget, and still beat the hell out of anything I can buy ready-made - food that could actually help keep me alive instead of kill me.

Also, I'm educating myself about everything, especially since I frequent thrift stores (where you can't return things). I drool over the catalogues and the sale flyers, but I go to the library or look online to make sure I'm not being manipulated, that the deals are real. Did you know most "sales" occur on marked up items? Remember the gold chain I was hyperventilating about a couple of weeks ago? Yesterday I found the same weight and length of chain at a discount department store on "sale" for 60% off (plus an extra 10% for their "two-day blowout" hurry hurry hurry) that was only $10 less than the one I bought for full price at a full-service jeweler's - at nowhere near the quality of mine (even the $2 chain I found at Goodwill a few months back beat it).

Most of all, I treat it all as a game, and as a consequence I've found that restraint has far more rewards than gluttony - it's more fun. For one thing, there's no shame, and no guilt - who can have fun with those two party poopers in the room, right? For another, I have more energy, more joy, and far more space in my house. So I indulge once in awhile, yes, even occasionally get out of control - but I reach daily for the best, the astonishing, the treasure. And so should you.

Especially this time of year.

In moderation, of course.

Fixation

Black Friday deserved its name this year, for all the wrong reasons - a man was trampled to death by a rapacious crowd inside a Long Island Walmart. When employees asked shoppers to clear the store because of the tragedy, the bargain-hunters ignored the request and kept filling their carts, many protesting that they'd been standing in line since Thursday morning.

"What is wrong with those people?" we asked in horror.

I don't know. I honestly cannot imagine what was going through everyone's mind - not just the people who shoved into the store with so much force they bent the steel doorjam with the weight of their assault, but those who refused to leave afterward. I cannot conceive what would drive someone to disregard so much of what is right and wrong.

Many newscasters spoke of desperation. Others of greed. Still others commented that we deserve the ills we are facing if we are this corrupt of ethics and morals.

Yes, yes, the usual, mostly unhelpful, crap - report, speculate, and judge. My question is, how do we combat it?

Fear drives us to do terrible things, and right now is a terrifying time for many, especially when money is concerned. But I think fear is only part of the equation. We are all afraid at one time or another, but most of us don't act on it (as a rule). Once the alarm is raised elsewhere, anywhere, though, it's tougher to resist - panic is contagious, and it doesn't have to be the same fear to infect everything around it. Fear does not choose specifics; it is generic and blind, a trigger that moves us into action or inaction.

Saying "have courage," or "resist it," is all well and good, even works much of the time, but ... I don't know about you, but I have to find the monster in the closet first, or I can't fight it.

Several thousand years ago, some very wise men gave us both labels and tools for specific fear-beasts - the Seven Deadly Sins. These are (in no particular order) envy, greed, lust, rage, pride, gluttony, and sloth. All are offspring of anxiety and nightmares. And all can be successfully fought.

The one newscaster had the right idea - greed seems the obvious culprit, after all, since shopping and money go together. But three of those seven - greed, lust, and gluttony - are practically interchageable in the dictionary. Yet they are not the same (the sages listed them separately, right?). Indeed, there are subtle but important differences, found in the antonyms: the opposite of greed is generosity, the the opposite of gluttony is moderation, and opposite of lust is indifference or renouncing. These people had trouble walking away, not because they were focused on overdoing but because their one-track minds wouldn't let anything else in. This points to lust.

No, lust is not just about sex. Lust is an intense craving, one so strong you know you'll never be happy until you get the object of your desire. A person, a drink, a laptop, even a life-circumstance can all be the center of this obsession. Lust is what happens when "want" or even "need" gets ramped up by fear. I experienced it last week to a slight degree, when my need for a perfect Thanksgiving resulted in forgetting this blog (and even some of my family). In Long Island, it translated to "I want an iPod for Johnny, but I don't have enough money to buy one except today, and if I don't get it I am -" fill in the rest (a horrible mother/father, broke and everyone will know it, enjoying this last holiday no matter the consequences). Desperation drove the train straight over an innocent human being and caused a temporary (I hope) block of all sympathy and empathy.

What's the cure for lust? Abdication, leaving completely, a 180-degree turn. I did this a few months ago, when my lust for jewelry became overwhelming - I fasted until I lost the compulsion, until I was buying for the right reasons. Yes, greed played a part (more on this later), as did gluttony (ditto), but my mind and emotions were completely focused. I woke up with it on my mind, I ate with it - I was buying anything that sparkled or shined because I wanted it, because it was the secret to beauty (with this new body), because would never be happy until I possessed adornment to match every mood and outfit. Oh, I used this quest as an excuse, but collectibles, even jewelry, are (at best) tricky investments. I know that now and I knew that then, but I was hooked. It was a drug. An addiction. And that's lust.

Money is tight everywhere. Around here, we've made a pact not to buy for anyone over the age of ten. The Big Lug and I will bend that a bit, of course, but it won't be nearly amount we spend every other year. For one thing, I have already shifted much of it to other places. For another, giving a gift frequently makes people feel beholden to return it in similar fashion - and most people can't afford to do so, though they will try. So, around here, I'll be baking cookies, making fudge, recycling nice pieces from thrift shops, maybe even leaving things anonymously (hide a $20 bill in a coat pocket while someone is visiting!). And I will continue to confront (and beat back) my own fears.

I've already gone too many rounds with the Seven Deadlies not to.