Mowing the Lawn, Living in Reality, Stacking the Deck

I mowed the lawn this morning. For a long time I didn't like to mow the lawn. Maybe "I resented mowing the lawn" is more accurate. It was a half unconscious annoyance.

Eventually I followed that nagging discontent back to it's source and found, as is often the case, a nasty little lie in a dark hole. Dragged out into the light, it went like this: I do most of the cooking and cleaning, ergo the Emperor should do the yard work.

Really? Even if he has grass allergies? Even if he hates to do it? Even if he does other, more important stuff around the house like take the kids so I can blog? Even if I actually kind of like to mow the lawn? Even if it provides me with some much needed exercise, fresh air and a task that stays completed for up to a week and makes me feel really good to have it done and it lets me think without interruption for nearly an hour? The lie evaporated and now I just mow the lawn. It's Living in Reality instead of the irritating misery of stewing about How Things Should Be.

One advantage to letting go of How Things Should Be, is that you can do a lot more of what you actually want or need to do. Here's a good example: I hit the point (on the scale) where I knew I needed to exercise. So far I have found very few ways to exercise that I actually want to do, and most of those, conveniently, are things I don't have access to: ice skating on a lake, for example or fencing, or swimming, or horseback riding. Well, I still needed to exercise, but, of course I didn't have time. More importantly, I needed to increase my prayer life, but, of course, I didn't have time for that either and the time I did have was maddeningly inconsistent from day to day. How Things Should Be: I should be able to exercise (and pray) every day at the same time doing exercises I enjoy. I can't, therefore I can't exercise, I'm off the hook! No heart disease for me, it's not my fault! Ditto for prayer!

It turns out, there is a way of Living in Reality that solves these problems: I stack the deck. I schedule exercise and prayer times throughout the day (3 times each) at times that might work. Do I ever hit them all? Not in the 2 or 3 months that I have been doing it. All it takes is a kid to get up early, someone to get sick or something "special" to be going on to knock out any individual prayer or exercise time. But, it also hasn't yet happened that every time was knocked out! Even if I hit a day where I can't do any of them, I will know that I did my best, and that was what God asked me to do. How's that for Living in Reality? God never asks you for something and leaves you no way to do it.

If you are curious, the 3 exercises I actually, regularly, do are 1. walking/running/chasing the kids on bikes on the way to Mass in the morning, 2. the Core program, and 3. Wii fit (I like to think of it as Wii fit into our jeans again sometime real soon now). And mowing the lawn!