Category Archives: yoga

Small Things

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If you haven’t read any of Mary Oliver’s work, or even if you think you don’t particularly like poetry, I highly recommend her to you.  If you read one of her poems and are not moved, well okay then, I was wrong.  I don’t mind being wrong. Not everyone can love what I love, or see what I see. But just this once, I might be right.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

To share Mary Oliver with you, to either introduce you or remind you, is a small thing.  Or is it?
bee
I was writing the other day about doing “great work,” and used what Operation Smile does as an example.  But that’s not the whole story.  You don’t have to do something technically difficult that not many people know how to do, or make a grand gesture, spend a lot of money or time, cause a stir, be a big deal or make a big fuss or raise a stink–you can make a difference by doing the small things.

Leave a note on someone’s windshield, or in their mailbox or lunchbox, or tie it to a tree branch in the local park, or tuck it into a book at the library.

If you are headed into a grocery store and plan to use a cart anyway, and you see that someone is just about done with theirs, and they’ll have to take it back or abandon it, ask them if you can take it for them.

Hold the door open for someone.  Let someone cut in line.  Give someone a sincere compliment.  Really listen when someone is talking to you, look them right in the eye.  Talk to a stranger, (you may be the only one that did all day). Pet your dog. Tell someone that you love them. Express your gratitude. Encourage someone. Instead of complaining, do a chore with love and attention. When you eat, feel gratitude for all the people and the planet that worked to get you that meal. Be kind to someone who doesn’t deserve it. If someone, almost in passing, tells you about something they really want, and you can make it happen for them–make it happen.

Share all the good things.  Smile.  Don’t be a jerk.  These are really small things, but they make a huge difference.

And please don’t forget, you should be doing nice things for yourself too.  Honor yourself, rest when you need to, stop adding so many things to your to-do list, do the little stuff that will restore you: listen to your favorite song, take a nap, skip yoga and go on a date with your husband instead, take a walk, stretch, take a deep breath, stop apologizing for being who you are, ask for what you need, say “yes” when someone offers to help.  Tell yourself you are loved, thank your body for carrying you around, be grateful that you showed up, that you keep showing up.  Here’s a list of a few more things you might do for yourself, from the amazing Rachel W. Cole.

  • What are the small things you do? What small thing could you do RIGHT NOW, for yourself or someone else? If you need help thinking of something, there’s a whole website devoted to the subject: “Do One Nice Thing.”

Update: In my mailbox this morning was this quote from Mother Teresa: “I don’t do great things. I do small things with great love.”

Another update: Even more ideas for small things you can do, from Operation Nice.

Turn the f*ckin faucet on!

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Indeed.  Here’s the secret that Andrea Scher didn’t mention: once you turn it on, you won’t want to turn it off. faucet

The water is so refreshing and crisp and clear and wet, hot if you want it, cold if you want it, add soap and you can clean up, add a tea bag or slice of lemon and take a long drink, fill up a tub or a swimming pool, attach a hose and wash the car or water the plants or add a sprinkler and run through it–I mean it is so much fun, so good, you feel so clean and refreshed and AWAKE: how do you bring yourself to turn the damn thing off?!

Sam, Water Dog

It reminds me of Sam when you put out the sprinkler to water the yard. He’s part Lab (water dog) and part Border Collie (herder), so he will stay in the yard the entire time you run it, herding and chasing and biting and running through the water.  Even after you turn it off and coil up the hose, he’ll lie down and stare at the pile, just waiting for the water to come back, breaking his gaze only to look to you and whine, wanting you to help him get the water back.

Or, like me in the shower this morning.  I was done with all the things I needed to do in there, the task was completed, but the pressure and warmth of the water was so nice, I just didn’t want to get out.

Now that I’ve turned the f*ckin faucet on, I don’t want to turn it off.  I want to take the Myers & Briggs Personality Type test like Jen Gresham suggested, and then sign up for her eight week self-study “No Regrets Career Academy” course and learn how to change my career into “an exciting, successful career that makes a difference, without sacrificing the lifestyle you desire.” I want to fill out the “Ideal Work Day” worksheet that Chris Guillebeau recommends in his book, “The Art of Non-Conformity” and on his blog, and finish reading his book. I want to work on my Mondo Beyondo and Superhero Photo class assignments.

I want to go on treasure hunts and make dream lists and build a shrine to my three big wishes and take a long walk with my dogs and then take a nap with them in the back yard and take a yoga class and meditate and stare at my toes and make blog posts and kiss my husband when he comes home from work and hold his hand and feed him good food that I made while he was away and both of us take another walk with the dogs and talk about all our dreams and plans and work on my book and do research about just about everything that’s so interesting about being alive and human and talk with my friends about all of it over a Red Table or a margarita.

Now that I am giving myself permission to write, to dream big, to make wishes, to be brave, to see where this could all take me, I am extra fed up with my other work, the work that I get paid for, and I am finding it so hard to focus on it when I want to be HERE.  There’s just not room for all of it, at least not in this space and time continuum.  I am greedy, taking on more than I can possibly do, but there is just so much I want.

  • What do you want?