I think I need to be more mindf

I write a post a while ago about how I wanted to be more thoughtful in my everyday life.

Because, let me be honest, if it was up to my instincts, as soon as M and A left for school, I'd be on a couch or bed, with a second cup of coffee and a chocolate bar (perhaps garnished with peanut butter), watching hours of YouTube videos, or bad British TV. I can waste time like an Olympic Champion. Of wasting time, that is. My guess is that Olympic Champions of Things Like Sport don't dedicate many hours a day to the aforementioned activities.

And even when I'm out, I spend a lot of my travel time (when I am on my own), flicking through Facebook, Kindle and iWeather on my phone. Did the temperature just change? Does that App say it might snow tomorrow? Is it raining right now where I am? If I don't keep refreshing that screen, how will I know? "Gosh, I wish it would stop raining on my iPhone so I could see if the app tells me it is raining right now..."

Although these many activities keep my brain pleasantly amused in a sort of stupid, neuron stunting way, they don't make me calmer, or more centered. They bring an undertone of unease to my life that I like to erase every once in a while and start over.

Thus the idea to spend a month more thoughtfully. Instead of starting my morning half hour of free time with web surfing, I start it with an errand I've been putting off. Like writing a blog post, say, or making a phone calls (that's a whole 'nother post...how it is possible for me to hate the phone so very much?). Like now, for instance. My brain is a very easily distracted brain. As soon as I am no longer in a context, it may as well not have existed.

I had to pause to go to the bathroom, and on the way back I'm already thinking about getting a new dog bed, since L doesn't have any good ones anymore, and then I think "but where the hell do you buy one online here in Switzerland, oh wait I'm going to IKEA soon and maybe I can stop at Interio to, hey I need to rent that car for the IKEA trip..." Sigh. Today I managed to get back to writing, luckily, although these last 7 sentences almost didn't make it into this world.

So anyway, my month of thoughtfulness. It was going well. I would put an extra 10 minutes into writing a card to a neighbor who is housebound, instead of clicking 10 times on Facebook refresh, if I was feeling disconnected from people. I would get an errand done per day and cross it off the kitchen whiteboard list. And since I am easily influenced by visual information, I decided to write a reminder to myself about thoughtfulness on the "chalkboard"-like sticky calendar on the wall.

Good indicator that you need more thoughtfulness in your life...you managed only to write "THOUGHT" before you were distracted, and the "FULLNESS" is now missing. Indeed it is.