Uh oh. I am in trouble.
I was eating trail mix, or so I thought, and somehow all that is left are nuts and raisins, which means I wasn’t actually eating trail mix. . . . just chocolate.
I always do this. At my bridal shower, my sister in law had us play this game where she sent Dave a letter while he was at Basic Training to fill out with all of these questions about what his favorite food was or what he thought my favorite color was. Then they had me guess his answers, and if I got them wrong, I had to put gum in my mouth so the more I got incorrect, the harder it became to chew the giant wad of gum. One of the questions revealed what Dave’s biggest pet peeve was about me, and turns out, “picking out all of the good stuff” of things like trail mix was his number one annoyance! I can think of a few more things that I do that I thought he would have considered more annoying, like coming in halfway through a movie and asking a million questions, or telling the same story over and over and over, but no, leaving trail mix chocolate-less was the worst thing I could do. And now I’ve done it again!
What’s so bad about “picking out the good stuff”? I like good stuff. I like to do things that make me feel good, and avoid the things that don’t make me feel good. That sounds like a good plan, right? Well, not exactly. Sometimes it’s important to do things that you don’t like to do, because they will eventually make you feel good. Like doing laundry, for example. I’m sure very few people get a good deal of pleasure out of the tedious task of laundering, but doesn’t it feel nice to have clean, soft, fresh clothing and linens? Studying for a test may not be the most enjoyable activity, but receiving a good grade after all of your hard effort feels pretty good, doesn’t it?
Nuts and raisins are good too!
This is the mantra that I am using these days to get myself to do the hard stuff. I don’t like to clean, but I feel better when I do. I hate feeling sore, but love feeling strong. My least favorite chore is filling up at the gas station, but it’s just something I need to do whether I want to or not.
The best part is that I’ve started to enjoy these mundane, annoying tasks knowing that I will feel so good when they are finished. It’s easy to do the fun stuff, but doing the things you don’t necessarily like takes discipline. It tastes good to eat the chocolate, but it feels good to eat the nuts and raisins.
So eat the nuts and raisins, and leave some chocolate for your husband sometimes. . . .
I made trail mix for our wedding favors – go figure!
YOGA with MINDY 