Write It Down

My Dear Friend has started her own blog. Find it on my blog list as "Larissa's Crow." She is not an author (aspiring or otherwise), so you may wonder why I put her on my blog list. Well, she's turned into a plot-critique partner over the course of our friendship, it's easier for me to check her blog through my blog, and she's a Farmville neighbor so I need to be nice to her in the real world.

Larissa is an avid reader, at-home mother of five, and a fan of my writing, which gives her an automatic pass on anything as far as I'm concerned. She is also one of the smartest people I've ever met and, without doubt, the sweetest-natured, aside from my dog Sweetie. Larissa will think that comparison funny, which only illustrates my point. Since she's just starting out, stop by and give her an 'atta girl. Oh, and mom thinks your blog should be titled "Larissa Crows." Whatever.
On with today's post.

Last day of the fast. I can't believe I've made it this far with surprisingly little discomfort. Perhaps attitude really is everything.

In my first semester of college, Master Student was a required 8 week course designed to teach us newbies to be -aha!- master students. It was a fantastic textbook. What I learned in that class has benefited me almost daily since.

The first lesson was "be here now," meaning wherever you are, focus your entire attention on that time and place. Doing so will save you time later. This is probably the single most useful thing I learned in college.

But sometimes you can't focus your entire attention on your current time and place. Something keeps distracting you. Something is nagging at you. Something pulls at you and screams at you and jumps up and down in front of you demanding attention right now. So, the second lesson was "write it down."

When those times of intense distraction come, it is a better use of your time to write it down to deal with later than to ignore it. One of the reasons this works is because your subconscious knows you might forget about that important thing so it will continue to harp on it until you do something. When you write it down, you've done something and you can relax and refocus on your surroundings.

One might also argue a qualifying phrase to "write it down" is "where you will find it later." This applies if that thing really is as important as your subconscious seems to think it is.

Yesterday I kept a list of my food cravings. It was a long list, staring with a tuna fish sandwich and ending with Totinos Pizza Rolls (which is odd because I don't eat those). I did take 60 seconds to really savor the memory of saltine-coated, crunch-fried salmon patties with peppered, french cut
green beans and wild rice with a touch of gravy. Sigh.

My point is writing it down helped. Once I'd written it down, I could move on with my work day secure in the knowledge that if I still wanted those foods later, I had a check list. And I definitely know where I put it.