Monday, August 22, 2011

Holey Buckets!

I used to say holy buckets! and thought it was like holy cats! or a clean sub for holy sh**! but I'm starting to think about HOLES in the bucket. And I like that metaphor.

I can't help noticing that a lot of people are talking about 'no time', 'no energy', 'no money'...I have a guy who works at the Hacienda who is a great, creative, well read technical director of a theater department at a big University. He can do anything. Build anything. Fix anything. Rewire anything. And yet I hear him talk about how he "didn't go to college, so I'll never get ahead..." and "I loved Santa Fe but I didn't think I'd ever earn enough money to live there..." and "I've always earned my age, and I always will. "

He's not as Eyeore as all that sounds, but my ears prick when I hear someone cutting their feet off because they have decided that they won't be able to walk the yellow brick road, so why bother. Carving your own road blocks is a full time job and a huge waste of energy. And it's not about manifesting money, that's a bucket without a bottom as far as I'm concerned. It's about CREATING THE LIFE YOU WANT. Do we even know what that is? If you don't want to live in Santa Fe, that's fine. But if you do but can't ever see how you'd manage? That's a dark fruitless yearning. Where does that come from? I investigate.

I often see people tying their own nooses. I've done it a ton. I've set bear traps for myself, dug holes I couldn't get out of, bought my ticket for the ride on the sinking boat. But I stopped. I sat down, reassessed and cut the fat. Shut down all the chatter in my head and externally. And really looked--- REALLY at what I could do without.  I know the feeling of coming to the end of the month and having $5 until payday. And. It. Sucks. (and why I prefer to make my own money and improv my finances, paychecks and me? Not since 1995)

But I had to call myself out and find the holes in my bucket. Some are small and repairable, like---um, spending $300 a month on WINE. Stop it. (or, in my case, slow it down...) Or maybe weaning off the friends and family who drain the crap out of you. Or turning off the news feed because it makes you insane. And guess what? none of this feels like a sacrifice. 

Giving up grain the first couple weeks was a little sketchy but not nearly as Trainspotting as I thought it would be. The upside is that I have fewer cravings in general which has rolled into less dairy (to melt on the beautiful crust of something) less late night nibblies, fewer 3pm comas, more big piles of veggies grilled, pureed, steamed, raw---and a ton of sustainable energy that I can use for things that I like to do--
like shagging the gardener and making fences out of old branches.

The upsides are plentiful for the other things I cut to. Less really is more. Picture yourself cutting the sandbags off your balloon and soaring. We have been so programmed in our society to think about what we need to get, gain, have---that we don't even stop to think about what we could get rid of. And oddly, that is so much more rewarding.

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I don't have any money! Says the guy with an iPhone, wi-fi, a new Macbook Pro, a $5/day coffee habit, a new car payment and $150 cableTV bill. 

"I'm so exhausted!" says she who fuels her body with crackers, snackies, junk, sugar and caffeine.


"I don't have time for ...(going back to school, learning another language, Tango lessons, volunteering, pottery classes, travel)" says the one with a three hour a day TV fanny.
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I say check yo self. You might be surprised.