Close Enough....

Close enough....

“The me you see isn’t me – I am my ghost.”

— Mahmoud Darwish, from ‘Mural’, Mural (trans. John Berger & Rema Hammami)

بأن يتوق القلب لما كان سابقاً.

The heart yearns for what it once was.

‫وأنا أتوق إلى النور، على الرغم من حرقه لأنني بدونه، سأكون في الظلام بالتأكيد.

And I yearn for the light, even though it burns. Because without it, I will surely be in darkness.

~ mindofserenity

Self-Discipline Isn’t Always the Answer

So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.

Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.

I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”

And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone! 

I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.

This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that. 

Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener. 

Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”

TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.

You'll get more chances. At friendships. At relationships. At job/school related progress. At following your dreams. At chasing your passions. It's not now or never. There will always be other chances and other opportunities.

Writing tips

words worth knowing:

Jaleo : (n.) A lively dance of Andalusian origin, or the music or handclapping which accompanies it.

Zambra : (n.) A kind of flamenco dance.

Elysian : (adj.) Relating to or characteristic of heaven or paradise.

Macerate : (v.) (especially with reference to food) soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid.

Airhead : (n.) an area in enemy territory or in threatened friendly territory, seized by airborne troops for bringing in supplies and additional troops by airdrop or landing.

Ergometer : (n.) a device designed to measure muscle power.

Minacious : (adj.) Menacing; threatening.

Cabasset : (n.) a morion of small size.

Zealous : (adj.) someone who spends a lot of time or energy in supporting something that they believe in very strongly, especially a political or religious ideal.

Saudade : (n.) (in Portuguese folk culture) a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent.

Gallus : (adj.) (Scottish) (Also gallous) bold; daring; reckless.

Vomitorium - 1: (n.) Each of a series of entrance or exit passages in an ancient Roman amphitheatre or theatre./ 2: A place in which, according to popular misconception, the ancient Romans are supposed to have vomited during feasts to make room for more food.

Charles Simic, ‘Totemism’, from Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell