I spent most of Monday dealing with some sort of stomach thing.  It was either a virus or one of my medications for diabetes was upsetting my stomach or it very easily could have been my gastroparesis acting up.  

I had a nice chat with my new daughter-in-law today.  It is still hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I am someone’s mother-in-law. I do not feel like I am old enough for that to have happened.

I have a confession.  I never got dressed today.  I felt so bad from whatever was making my stomach upset, that I never could get the motivation to get out of my pj’s.   

Oh what a nice, quiet day it has been.  My husband and daughter have spent the day away doing things for other people.  They took a truck load of firewood to my grandmother, chopped up some firewood for us, went to my mother-in-law’s house to repair/replace some frozen/busted water pipes.  I have had the house to myself and Minnie and I have been cuddling under the covers together.

Minnie

I got very clever this evening.  I had accidentally let the fire die down until is was nothing but coals.  I put some more wood on it thinking it would start back up.  It did not.  In the past when we would go camping, I would just blow on the hot coals and the fire would start back up.  Seeing as I have asthma now, I do not have the lung capacity to do that anymore.  I got the air mattress pump and pointed the nozzle towards the hot coals and pumped the handle.  The fire started right back up and there was no work involved.  Yay me!

I am a slacker.  I freely admit that.  I do not wear the slacker badge proudly, but I do wear it.  

I think my slacking ways started when I was a kid and got significantly worse when the depression started.  I was a slacker in school, have been known to be a slacker at work, and am most definitely am a slacker now.

As a kid I was always one of those kids that was very smart, but “never worked to my potential”.  I am sure I was a source of extreme frustration to my teachers and parents. If it was not something I was truly interested in, following the path of least resistance (just plain not doing anything in most cases) was what I would choose to do.

I read books at recess instead of playing with the other kids.  Keeping my clothes picked up was too much of a bother, it was so much easier to just throw them in the bottom of my closet, or under my bed.  Once I reached a point in school where home work was assigned, it just seemed easier to me to not bother with it.  My parents gave me very few chores when I was growing up, and very often I resisted greatly when it came time to do them.  I was well on my way to being a professional slacker early on in my life.

In high school I would read what I wanted to in class, rarely participated in class discussions, and very often slept my way through the class.  In literature class, we would usually be given our text books on the first day of school.  When I would get home from school that day, I would read every story in the literature book, and then for the rest of the year pay absolutely no attention to the class.  I liked the stories, it was too much work to dissect them.  


Choosing the path of least resistance always seemed like a good idea at the time, but most of the time it did not work out to my benefit.  Often I would just agree with what someone wanted to do, because it seemed easier to do that than actually speak up with an opinion I might have to defend.  Or I would be silent and let the choices be made for me.  


My slacker way of taking the path of least resistance, led to two failed marriages, an inability to hold on to a job for a long period of time, and in me not really having my own voice.  Not having my own voice meant that I was very often frustrated with the people in my life.  For the most part the fault was with me not them, after all, I was the one who was choosing not to speak up for myself.  


When I developed severe depression I lost much of my motivation to do anything.  As a life long slacker already, to lose what motivation that I did have turned me into a fixture on the couch or in my bed.  There was very little I managed to accomplish on a daily basis, and my family had to pick up the slack.  The path of least resistance often became me going to bed and putting the covers over my head.  I totally did not have to deal with anything that way.  That was ultimate slacking.  


Now that I have been in treatment for my depression for a few months now, I am getting some of my motivation back.  I also realized that it was not healthy for me to go through life without my own voice and letting people make decisions for me.  


The problem is, I have found it really hard to put aside the life long habit of slacking.  In many ways taking the path of least resistance still appeals to me, even though it is very unhealthy (mentally and physically) for me.  I have found that at this time in my life that I want my own voice, and I need my own voice.  It really has become time for me to own up to being a slacker and then become very serious about unslacking myself.  


I am not really sure how to go about this.  I think what I should do is sort of adopt the approach I have been using to have a more positive mental attitude.  Every day I will pick one thing to do around the house that I normally would avoid because it was too much trouble to do.  Right now one thing is best, I tend to get overwhelmed and do nothing when I put too many things in front of me to accomplish.  I will continue doing this every day, until the habit of being productive replaces the habit of being a slacker.  I figure by then, I will be in such of habit of getting off my butt and doing something that I won’t even consider it a chore anymore.  


The other thing I need to do to unslack myself is to find my own voice.  I need to get in the habit of being able to voice my opinion with other people so I am not just carried along, like a seed in the wind, doing what everyone else wants to do.  I need to learn how to speak up for myself and set boundaries with the people in my life.  I think practicing this will be a benefit.  Taking each situation and person as they come along and dealing with them in a one on one basis, clearly but not rudely establishing new ground rules for how I would like to people to interact with me. 

So, yeah I am a slacker. I do not wear the slacker badge proudly, but I do wear it.  I really want to be able to put the slacker badge aside, and be able to wear the self motivated badge with pride.  

One of my biggest sources of anxiety has been rooted in a feeling of never being satisfied with what I have or what I can do or what I have done.  I did not feel any personal worth, because I always felt as if I was lacking something.  Something about my personality, or character, or even sometimes a material thing.

I think this lack of satisfaction also led to a very negative internal dialogue.  I was always pointing out to myself what I was lacking.  Or telling myself the reason something did not work out the way I had planned was because I could not manage to do it properly.  I hate to admit this, but I also was jealous of what other people had that I did not.  My head was just so full of all this negative stuff that stemmed from not being satisfied.


This lack of satisfaction led to me develop a victim mentality.  Why did I get asthma at thirty-seven?  Why did I have to develop diabetes.  Why are they doing better than us financially, we work just as hard as they do?  I was constantly asking “Why me?”.  I became convinced that some cosmic force was out to get me.  I often said things were “not fair”.  I complained that life was too hard, and focused on my illnesses instead of positive things.  


Because I could not get satisfaction out of anything, I became very angry and resentful.  I would sit and dwell on all my perceived short comings, material and personal.  The more I did this, the more foul my mood would become.  I could go from being very quiet to a raving, yelling, not nice person in a second.  I am embarrassed to recall all those poor innocent people (doctors, service people on the phone, my husband….) I yelled at when I was in such a bad frame of mind.


At some point in the last few months my internal dialogue began to change.  I cannot say exactly when that happened, or even why it happened.  I do suspect some of it has to do with the counseling I have been getting since May, and also my depression and anxiety medications.  Maybe it has to do with the “home work” my counselor gave me, to find something positive in every situation.  I guess the why is not as important as the fact that it is changing. 

What has happened is that, probably for the first time in my life, I am satisfied.  With that satisfaction I have let go of much of my anger, and am not jealous of what other people have.  In the grand scheme of things, the things that satisfy me are, for the most part, not really all that important but at the same time they are. 

I have found satisfaction in being able to get dressed before noon, or if I can make a nice meal for my family.  Having a conversation with my daughter, or getting my blog done for the day.  I am satisfied when I have a good mental health day, or if I can keep from freaking out during a stressful situation.  

Bad days are not really all that bad anymore, because I can find something about that day to be satisfied with. I do not look at things as being fair or unfair anymore.  I do not sit around and ask “Why me?”  I do not look at what other people have and wonder why they have it better than I do.  


This does not mean I am this happy and perky person everyday.  It means I am satisfied.  My internal dialogue is one that does not put me down, or tell me that I am not adequate.  Instead it tells me that I did a good job, or that I did accomplish something.  It leaves me with a pleasant feeling at the end of the day. 



I enjoy the measure of peace that being satisfied has given me.  I feel less stressed.  I feel better about myself.  I enjoy being around other people more than I used to.  It is like my soul is quieter, and calmer and not as bone weary as it was when I tried to kill myself.


Being satisfied does not mean that life will not be hard at times, nor does it mean that I will always be in a good mood.  It really just means a peacefulness that goes all the way through me, fills me up, and flows into my soul.  It gives me an inner strength and confidence, that I have lacked for most of my life.  It just plain feels good to be satisfied.