Every Day Can Be "Hole-y"

This week, I found that my favorite pair of hand-knits socks has a hole. Bummer!!! My camera also needs batteries, so I couldn't show you a photo of the big humongeous hole at the heel - but here's an old photo when the socks were first being made last fall. It's my Raphael (Jitterbug) socks. Thank goodness, I found an excellent web tutorial here that shows how to fix it. I'll be trying it later this weekend and will let you know how that works for me.

My friend Elysbeth has been discussing her 100 days of change over on her blog, and I find that concept fascinating. She is making SMALL but significant daily changes that really make an impact on her life, and she is describing those changes and what affect they have. She's given me several ideas of changes I might want to make also.

Now, in the interest of keeping things perking along for all 5 of my readers, here two more personal beliefs/philosophies that sort of illustrate my own current life lessons and are tied closely together with the physical event that manifested this week (the holy/hole-y sock). You see, holes make us "holy" especially if we work on repairing them.

Find the holes in your own life - you first have to be aware and identify them. Chelle's theory of "holes" is that EVERYBODY has them. There's at least one area of your life, and usually SEVERAL that are majorly screwed up. It might be health, marriage, friendships, children, smoking, weight, clutter, financial, sexual . . . the list goes on and on, as you might imagine. But whatever it is, find your pain - go to ONE AREA at a time and take an unbiased look at it. The one I'm personally working on right now is weight/exercise.

Can't we just ignore the hole and pretend we didn't see it? Ah . . . yeah, that works sometimes, for a little while, but the hole keeps getting bigger and harder to fix.

A Little is a Lot. I recently watched an old movie that is really funny, called "What About Bob" starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus. In this movie, a psychologist (Dreyfus) has a self-help book out called "Baby Steps" and he tries to coach hilarious patient, Bill Murray, out of a bunch of neurotic phobias by encouraging him to take small steps toward facing and overcoming his fears. The movie has a message, along with the comedy, that any small steps you take toward ANY goal will bring you closer, and makes achieving your goal feel easier and more doable. So take the small steps - doing 10 minutes of exercise is WAY better that none at all. Try to do the small stuff every day and you'll soon be making progress toward your destination. I used to keep a sign on my Nordic Track machine that said, "A little is a lot" because it is.

Try to tackle only one hole at a time - first identify it, then see what you can do to take SMALL steps in repairing those holes.

It's just like fixing a hole in your sock - see where it is, what may be causing it . . . . what material would best fix it, and then get your repair kit out and go to work on it. One . . . baby . . . . step . . . at . . . . a . . . . time.