Finding Flow

  A year or so ago, I used a book called Happier Hour with my freshmen. Though some students liked it, it wasn’t a resounding hit and I ended up changing books the following fall. I liked it, though, and it still holds a place of prominence on my bookshelf so I can easily reference it.

This semester, I’m teaching positive psychology and I’m getting ready to address the idea of flow, a lovely state that graces me with its presence all too infrequently. When it’s absent for too long, I get cranky. This afternoon, feeling tired as well as frustrated that the opportunity to post here yesterday slipped through my grasp and shattered on the ground beneath me, I went in search of a “Way Back Wednesday” post to salvage the week and fill the void. This one felt just right.

In her section on "flow" (often called being “in the zone”), in the book Happier Hour, author Cassie Holmes offers seven conditions for achieving this elusive state of happy productivity:

1. Clear your space of threads for other tasks on your to-do list.
2. Clear your schedule for at least several hours.
3. Create this space during the time of day when you're most alert.
4. Shut the door.
5. Put in earplugs or put on headphones.
6. Close out of email.
7. Put your phone away.

I have had this post floating around in my head for about an hour. When I sat down to write it (alone in the sunroom where it's quiet), my husband was happily ensconced in front of a football game. I hadn't finished typing even three of the seven conditions above before he was wandering around making noise, rattling a bag as he put it away in the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator door....

You know. Living in his own house.

But reading about flow today made it abundantly clear to me why this is such a big deal. It even alleviated some of my guilt over being annoyed by it, often out of proportion to the interruption itself. Being on the cusp of flow only to have it shatter through a noise, an innocent (albeit poorly timed) request, or, y'know, life is like finally drifting off after a sleepless night only to have the alarm go off minutes later. 

Living in a house with other people is not conducive to flow, yet flow is an essential ingredient in creativity and, for may of us, concentration. The older I get, the more I feel the need to protect flow. Not only do I get in my own way when it comes to getting on the flow on-ramp, but, with age, I find it harder and harder to get back on the flow highway when an unanticipated red light jerks me to attention and makes me slam on the brakes. 

This concept flows (pun intentional) ever outward. Why I get distracted by everything but the thing I've promised myself I'd do, and frustrated by days that feel like a succession of meaningless tasks (#1). Why I love blank pages on the calendar (#2). Why I get frustrated when important tasks get pushed off into the evening (#3). Why I so desperately needed a door for my office to signal times when I really needed not to be interrupted (#4). Why every little noise (#5), email (#6) or text chime (#7) pulls my focus, even if only for a second.

FoYu via Pixabay

Holmes points out that flow usually occurs when we're doing something we're good at. This makes it so much more than happy productivity. If you've ever been in flow or ("in the zone"), you know that it can bring with it a kind of joy and fulfillment unlike anything inspired by a completed to-do list. Its very elusiveness is part of what makes it so desirable, and what makes it so incredibly frustrating when it shatters and we find ourselves trying to reassemble its shards to build a pathway back to where we were only a few minutes previously.

Achieving flow can nurture the soul, and coming out on the other side of it can make us more fun to be around. Having been nourished by a task we enjoy so much that we lose track of time while we're doing it, we feel a sense of peaceful accomplishment, along with a boost in confidence and a sense of gratitude, hopefully directed at least in part to those who made it possible. This a fortunate counterbalance to the grumpiness and frustration we feel in its absence.

For some, flow arrives with the endorphins that accompany a great run or athletic endeavor. For others, it comes through daily pursuits like cooking or knitting, or perhaps through spiritual practices like prayer or meditation. Getting lost in a book or music or art (whether listening, looking or creating) can inspire flow as well.

Sometimes we seek flow, and other times it finds us. Either way, we'd do well to invite it in as often as possible.

Meandering Back

Image by Steve Johnson from Pixabay

 In case it's not clear from the fact that I actually wrote (and posted!) three posts in the past ten days, winter break (yeah, weird name for a break in MARCH) was the week before last.

It felt really good to write those posts, and to put new material up, something I seem to be struggling to do these days. Writing -- when I manage to make time for it -- has not been feeling great, and writing those posts was a great reminder that writing can be fun.

But not all aspects of this writer job are created equal.

I love creating new material, filling white space with words, and telling stories. 

I hate revising large swaths of old material, getting in the weeds, and rooting out stray words and unkempt phrases. 

And I'm growing to dislike the submissions process even more.

For writers, writing is only part of the job, and for me, it's the part I love best. I love coming up with new ideas and characters, shaping them, and putting them on the page. It's great fun to meet new characters, mess with their lives and relationships, and create complications.

You know -- the kinds of things civilized people don't do in real life. 

Once I've created these worlds, I do not enjoy re-entering them and undoing what I've already done. Sure, it can be fun to ratchet up the tension, but there's often less of that and more pruning of the verbal shrubbery instead.

Trying to convince other people to love my characters as much as I do is hands down my least favorite part of the job. Convincing an agent or editor that they want to take me and my characters on is overwhelming and time-consuming. In addition, it takes time away from writing, not to mention poking little holes in my writerly self-esteem when rejections (or radio silence) inevitably arrive. 

But that's the way the game is played.

Lately, I've been trying to counterbalance the seeking representation part with writing just for fun, doing more playing with prompts and ideas and less worrying about where that writing is going . New projects can be a balm to the writerly soul, but they can also pull me in, creating a great excuse to stop doing the thing I don't enjoy, which is a surefire way to make sure my latest novel stays buried in a drawer.

Not the result I'm seeking.

Sometimes, I forget that writing is a job, which can be a good thing, but it can also be the thing that pulls me up short when the writing task du jour feels like work. (I already have a job, thank you very much!) Seeking that jolt of creativity from writing whatever or just because can be, I hope, the thing that reminds me why I do what I do.

And how much fun it can be if I can just get out of my own way.

It's a Wonderful Life

 This post from several birthdays ago seemed like a good companion to the one I posted yesterday :-) 

Yesterday morning, I got up early. Roofers were coming to work on our house and I wanted to be decent and ready to start the day before they started their work. Now, mind you, I’m a night owl so early to me and early to you are probably not the same thing. To me, anything before 8 AM is indecent but that’s because I usually go to bed somewhere around two.

As is often the case when I get up early because I have to (because I no longer get up early for any other reason), at some point in the day I find myself wondering why I don’t do this more often. Getting an earlier start seems to make my day more productive and I marvel at the additional things that get finished. I sleep well too, mostly because I’m exhausted, and I get up early the next morning to start fresh.

Except that I don’t. Sometimes, I get up even later than usual. It’s as though my body thinks I’ve played some sort of cruel trick and it wants to show me who’s really boss.

On another note (one that's related, I promise), I'm celebrating a milestone birthday next month and, to be honest, I’m having some trouble with it. Yesterday, a friend reminded me that it's just a number, which is my usual outlook on age. Yet, for some reason, this number bothers me more than any other that's come before (though, to be fair, forty was a comeuppance).

Then, this morning, I stopped and looked around – literally. Despite the warm weather (not my favorite thing) I wanted to start today out on our patio. Enclosed by a screened canopy, it's a teaser for the room we’ll be building in the fall. Even though it was late morning when I sat down under the canopy, the neighborhood was quiet, except for the birds who had quite a lot to say. The trees in our yard, so small when we bought the house are now (thanks to my husband’s TLC) bigger than we could have imagined. Butterfly bushes we planted years ago are now taller than I am and my favorite little hedge beside our patio is not so little anymore, giving us the sense of privacy we need on days like today, when we want to start the day out on the patio before we're appropriately dressed and coiffed. 

It's a pretty good life. But how does all of this connect?

Age is a number, but, as such, it's representational. Whether from my perch on the patio, the desk in my office or my place center stage (that's how I see it) running a classroom, I really can't complain. I mean, I can (and I do) but, if I take a step back and look at the big picture, what's missing? What is it that I wanted to do that I haven't done? More important, is there any answer to that question that's so substantial that it's worth clouding the picture and wasting time fretting over a number I can't change? 

No. There is not.

Sure, I could wish for a beach house and thick, lustrous hair and maybe even to be a morning person (but probably not that last one). Or maybe even the PhD I used to aspire to. Or I can enjoy what's right in front of me, own this number (that, quite frankly, I still don't like very much) and, in true Jersey girl style, decide what I want the next decade (or, God willing, several decades) to look like. 

So, here it goes.

Next month, I will turn the number below (I planned to just move right into the acrostic but, frankly, typing the number hurt a little bit). Here's how I plan to make it look:

  Sassy

  Intelligent

eXcellent (but not perfect)

 Teaching, theatrical & text-producing

 Youthful in outlook (The youthful appearance ship has already sailed).

JillWellington via Pixabay

In other words, the best of what I've spent decades (literally) honing. I don't need to be a morning person and I won't be a commercial for Botox. But I want to be wise enough to know that what I've built  to this point in my life is worth celebrating -- and building on -- because I'm not finished yet. In the end, that's a lot more fun than mourning some digits which, for the record, don't change until more than a month from now.

Just sayin'.

I'm okay with it. Really.

Or I will be, anyway.

PhD or Not PhD

Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay

 This semester, I'm teaching positive psychology (I might have mentioned that once or ten times before), and a lot of my reading and even leisure time activity has reflected this focus. This isn't surprising because prep for an unfamiliar or infrequently taught class often means digging into new resources.

Last week, I stumbled across a resource from an unexpected source. I was attempting to jettison junk emails from my inbox when I came across one from Coursera. I've taken some online courses through them before, so when they send me an email, I typically do a quick scan of the contents and then delete it. 

This time, though, one of the courses caught my eye: Mindfulness and Well-Being, a topic that aligns perfectly with positive psychology.

I clicked on the link, and discovered that it was being taught by an instructor from Rice University and that it was part of a three course certificate program in -- you guessed it -- mindfulness and well-being. 

Hmm.

I logged back into my account and signed up for the one week free trial, with a tentative goal of taking the three-courses necessary for certification. So far, I'm familiar with a lot of the material, which has enabled me to work ahead, and I'm enjoying the practices and the additional resources.

Decades ago, when I started college, I anticipated earning a PhD in psychology. But, along the way, I found other interesting paths -- a lot of them -- and I was reluctant to turn away from them to travel the straight and narrow necessary to earn those three little letters. A few years ago, I came to terms with the decision to declare my education complete without an additional degree.

But every once in a while, that old goal pokes at me, daring me to proclaim myself enough without that additional degree. Fortunately, there are other ways to engage my love of learning, ways that are less time-consuming and expensive, and that afford me the freedom -- and time and money -- to explore a wider variety of topics. Even better, the topics are ones that I've selected, rather than a pre-determined set of courses leading to a pre-determined destination.

In my less confident moments, I fall prey to the notion that I'll end up a jack of all trades and a master of none. And then I remember that I don't want to take statistics again, or run a research study. I'd much rather read about those studies and use the time I've saved to write a blog post.

Or a book.

Life presents so many choices, and it's sometimes hard to know which ones are the right ones. But when I look back on my life so far, I think I've chosen pretty well. I have a family I love, a job I enjoy, and the freedom to engage in whatever pursuits come my way. 

Or not.

The thing about choosing is that we can always choose to change our minds and, if we keep our eyes open, we'll always have more opportunities than we can ever pursue.

And that's a pretty good predicament to be in.

 

Three Very Different Books

 I consume non-fiction books in a number of ways. Sometimes I read them on my Kindle. Sometimes I read them in book format. Often, I listen to them on Audible. Regardless of the format, I tend to consume them a little bit at a time.

But, every once in a while, I get one that makes me want to keep picking it up to see what comes next. The last three non-fiction books I read (or, in the case of the third one, am reading) have had that impact.

The Twenty-Something Treatment by Meg Jay is, in my opinion, a book that everyone who is parenting a 20-something, works with a 20-something or is a 20-something should read. Cover to cover. Jay, a therapist who specializes in clients in this decade of life, discusses why this stage of life is particularly channeling, unravelling the reasons why the “best years of our lives“ don’t always feel that way. Jay legitimizes the struggles of this time of life when everything is so uncertain. As with many nonfiction books, I consumed this one a chapter at a time because there was a lot of information to absorb, but I found myself reaching for it over and over again when I was looking for something to read. 

The next book was something completely different. I originally bought Jessica Radoff's The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series as a Christmas gift for my husband, but quickly realized it was more my kind of book than his. And for all of you thinking this was just an excuse for me to appropriate the book, I showed it first to my daughter ("Do you think Dad would read this?") and then my husband ("Would you read this?") before deciding to read it myself rather than returning it. I wasn't sorry. Written in interview format, Radoff shares inside perspectives from the cast, producers and TV execs who created a series my husband and I watch in reruns on a regular basis. It's the kind of insider info my mom would have loved.

The third book, Oliver Burkeman‘s Meditations for Mortals is one of the best books of its kind that I've read. I read his Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals during the pandemic and it was just okay. This one, however, had me hooked from the moment I picked it up. At several points, I've actually had force myself to put the book down in order to adhere to Burkeman's recommendation to tackle the book one chapter per day. Burkeman thesis in both books is similar: we are finite human beings who were never meant to tackle infinite scroll to-do lists, but I'm finding Meditations for Mortals to be more accessible and perhaps more practical. Each meditation focuses on one aspect of his thesis in a very chatty yet well- supported fashion, investigating ways to choose what matters and let go of the rest. Burkeman's book has become my go-to morning read. Currently, I’m on chapter 25 and not only have I not missed a day, I am not looking forward to the end of the book because I so enjoy picking it up and reading what he has to say each day. Fortunately, I have an idea for a book that I'm currently reading that will fill the void.

Stay tuned :-)

Success

 I often think that my job would be much easier if I could just learn to leave well enough alone. That said, I also know that I don't want to be one of those teachers who just reuses the same lesson plans over and over again (if those teachers even still exist) without considering whether or not there's a better way.

The trouble is, there's almost always a better way. Consequently, much of my prep time is spent finding the sweet spot between "this is fine, leave it alone" and "this needs to be completely revamped."

Lessons that fall into the latter category are typically the ones where the content is just not that exciting to begin with -- things like developmental theorists. I've tried multiple ways to address the topic of these old dead guys in a way that's relevant to my students. The easiest ones to prepare were the least interesting and the most relevant (so far) were incredibly time-consuming when it came to grading, leading right back to the revamp ramp.

I'm happy to say that I think I've found a solution -- an approach that builds on the discussion-centric atmosphere I try to build in my classes without being overly onerous to my students or to me (when it comes to grading). An informal thumbs up/thumbs down poll taken at the end of today's class leads me to believe that my students feel the same way.

And that's a win. A success that makes me smile broadly, call my family, and write a blog post. 

Silly? A little. But when a lesson can generate engagement and meaningful discussion about a bunch of people who were coming up with theories a century ago, that's a successful endeavor.

Even if it took me a decade to get here.

Snow and Chairs and Slippers

 The house still smells faintly of the Indian food no one else eats, and a pair of emoji slippers sits mere steps away from the back door. Out in the sunroom, the office chair is almost in the center of the room, as though someone pushed it back from the table and just left it there.

But the driveway is empty.

She's gone back home. 

I was in a Zoom class when she left, and I missed her by less than ten minutes. I got to give her a quick hug between classes, though, and to tell her how much we enjoyed having her here. The quiet I'd hoped for has returned, but it feels more melancholy than peaceful.

This empty nest parenting of a young adult is a tricky business, a constant balancing act between hovering and relishing every moment she's back under our roof. I know I hug her too much and complain too much about the disarray she creates in typically clear spaces. I struggle to relax into a routine that allows me to accomplish my day-to-day responsibilities while being flexible enough to be available for things she wants to do. I don't have much of a poker face, and when I am worried or annoyed, it shows, no matter how much I don't want either of those things to color her visit, or how much I know I'll regret moments lost to such emotions when she heads back home.

She's happy. She's independent. Level-headed and kind, working in a field where she shares that kindness with others, making their lives better in the process. She has, indeed, surpassed all we'd hoped she would become, and this gives us reason to feel proud and oh so fortunate, knowing that not all parents are lucky enough to say the same thing.

I know from experience that this melancholy will dissipate. Like the aroma of the meal she microwaved for lunch, it will hang in the air for longer than I'd like, but not long enough to be unbearable. We'll fall back into our routine and she'll fall back into hers, keeping in touch from a distance. I know, too, that these feelings are the flip side of something very, very good: the joy I feel in having a child with whom I enjoy spending time. 

It won't be long until she's back for another visit-- or we go out to see her -- because she likes spending time with us, too.

And that -- that being chosen -- by itself, makes up for the melancholy.