Words of Wisdom. . .

Dear Super-Fast Phone Number Guy,
Thanks for leaving a message on my machine.  I got most of it, except that pesky phone number part.

You see, you spoke very clearly throughout most of the message, enunciating your words and using impressive vocabulary.  That is until you asked me to call you back "ASAP" (which, just as a sidenote, is generally considered the "urgent red flag" of the phone world) and then rattled off your phone number like you were Tom Cruise diffusing a bomb; all I actually heard was 415-shma-shmeeeeh-smah-extension smeh-smah-2.  While it was impressive that you have your phone number THAT memorized, I don't.  If I tried to dial that number, I am as likely to reach you as I am to order some delicious Chinese takeout in your same area code.

In the future, if you really need me to call you back "ASAP", hurry up your message and use the two seconds that you shaved off to actually tell me your phone number at a speed that I might be able to dictate.  I'm not a court reporter, man.  I'm a girl with a pen that occasionally needs a scribble to get moving.  Breathe your way through that phone number part and I promise you, I'll call you back next time.

Don't feel sad.  Your friend, The 10 min Message Guy who Didn't Bother to Leave a Phone Number After all of That!, is getting his letter as we speak.

Sincerely,
The Girl with Too Many Messages

Old habits die hard. . .

I'm a creature of habit, that's the truth.  I don't deal well with change.  In fact the idea of making a major life shift makes my heart rate jump just enough to mimic a slow jog.  It's weird though because I love adventure.  The problem is that it better be planned-for, packed-appropriately, scheduled-in adventure or I'll have nothing to do with it. 

That's just how it's always worked. . . we planned for everything.  Us Hamblins have all had planners or date books or calendars ever since I can remember.  (One of my favorite things still to do each year is to go and find next year's planner. . . same exact model and layout as last year please or I will hyperventilate, I promise you.).  We grew up knowing where we were to be at what time and in what clothes.  I promise you that if you need to know how much a gallon of milk cost in 1997, my mom has it on a grocery list somewhere in her planner (it's basically a Mecca of information and I have zero doubts that the cure to cancer is hidden somewhere in those leather-bound walls).

Anyway, the point is that this is the way it was. . . and continues to be today.  My name is Carlee and I am a plan-aholic. 

Does this neurotic 'planning' thing sound familiar?  Does it feel 'comfortable' and 'good'?  It does to me too because that's what I'm used to and frankly, couldn't even SEE life any other way.  I'm like a Clydesdale with Franklin Covey blinders on.

So, I shocked my system a little bit.  What did I do?  I got married.  The therapy that it has brought to my twisted mind is worth all of the extra laundry, promise.  Living with someone else and sharing everything with them has surprised. . . no shocked. . . no STUNNED me as I've seen how many other ways there are of doing things.  Trev is more of a fly-by-the-seat of his pants kind of guy than I've ever been a day in my life.  (I'm too busy figuring out which pants and why those pants and will flying by them make them rip?).  He's organized and responsible but he certainly doesn't own a planner. . . and, I'll admit it, probably shocked by the number of "to-do" lists a single person can have - four at once.  I know, I'm embarrassed for me, too.

Just looking at our two ways of doing things got me thinking. . . I've always been a big planner because, as previously stated, that was my world.  Mom and Dad had planners so it was only right that I had a Fisher Price one, right?  Right.

This relentless love affair with to-do lists and planning got me thinking about how many things I do in my life just because that's. . .well. . .that's just how you do it!  Call it being afraid to venture out or call it naivety for just assuming that it was the only way to do things.  The bottom line is that I'm looking at my legacy and wondering how much of it is Carlee and how much of it is Pavlov. . . simply a learned habit. 

Let's take steak, for instance.  My parents eat their steak medium-well.  So do I.  I have all of my life.  I never ordered it any other way because that's how we order steak.

Or banking.  Where do I bank?  We'll I wouldn't put that on the web, silly.  But it's the same place that parents bank.  Why?  Because that's where we bank!  Who needs a better reason than that?

My point is that I'm a lemming sometimes; it's easier to assume that other people know all the right answers than to have to research it myself.  The problem is. . . how will I ever know what my tastes are if they are always based on the tastes of others?  Confucius say: he who can't find his own tastes will never eat tomatoes. . . or something like that.

I successfully broke one of these habits some years ago and it was totally liberating.  I used to use my online banking to verify that my checkbook tracking was correct.  Read that last sentence again, slowly.  Yes, I was a checkbook believer and couldn't imagine ever swiping my debit card without recording it in the book of life. . . er. . . my checkbook.  I saved receipts for days on end and wrote them all down and then verified that I got them all through the power of the Internet and online banking.  Does that seem silly?  Well, it's what I knew.  So, I decided to be brave and only write down the actual checks that I wrote (which amounts to about two per month) and just verify my purchases and balances online.  It was tough at first but man, there was nothing more liberating than changing a habit that did nothing but inconvenience me to start with. 

So I'm on a mission to change things up.  I'm aiming to find things that can be done a better way - different isn't good enough, it needs to be BETTER or why change?  I'm going to break some habits and improve some schedules. . . maybe tone it back to two "to-do" lists.  The thought of this makes me really excited I should celebrate!  Maybe eat a steak. . . and I think I'll take it medium.