Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater

Lately, I'm having a big bout of extremism. "This will never happen. That always breaks. This is a disaster. That was a waste of time. Winter will never end. Spring will never be here." It's not like me at all.

I don't know where it's coming from.

Also woke up with the weirdest thought the other morning. I was burrowing around under the covers -- hesitating about getting out of bed on a cold morning -- something normal people often do but I rarely do. I tend to SPRING out of bed most mornings, but I was getting in a funk, and feeling like nothing will ever amount to anything and just feeling hellishly impatient about a lot of things. For some reason I thought, "You know I want to get really good at flossing my teeth, and making them white. That's something I can really get behind." And I started to get really obsessed about the idea. It just seemed like something I can control. I can be sure of a good outcome. Get some of those whitening strips, get a big bundle of dental floss, get all crazy about brushing 10 or 15 times a day with my Oral-B toothbrush and I will have some seriously terrific teeth.

I dragged myself out of bed and the devil side of my brain said, "You are LOSING your mind."

But my angel side said, "Wait a minute, maybe so, but you'll have a fabulous smile in the looney bin."

Which is all to say that it's really easy in these hellish transition times between seasons to get so fed up and impatient about everything in your life, you can find yourself throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a number of areas of your life.

Your diet will never work, so you stuff your face. Your exercise routine will never happen, so you give up completely. That new job will never appear, so you stop looking.

All I can say is STOP! This perilous "in-betweeny" time requires the discipline of a ninja in training to just back off from those feelings of blowing up your best-laid plans. Just help yourself by not freaking out. Keep the baby. And buy some dental floss.

[BTW, I have terrible teeth so I don't know what the heck I'm thinking here. Still if I make even the smallest improvement, I'll be much impressed with myself.]