Sorting Potatoes and Thoughts

I volunteered at my local foodbank this week, and it was a good experience. I am a huge fan of what foodbanks do, and I can't abide the thought of hungry kids anywhere. I've been a financial donor for a long time, but this was my first experience donating time.

It was really fun and really boring, all at the same time. The task was to sort ginormous piles of potatoes into 3-lb bags. 

• cut the big bag
• open small bag
• put 3-ish pounds of potatoes in small bag using a scale
• tie small bag
• toss small bag into a huge crate thing
• and repeat as much as you can for the duration of the shift

Here are some things that came to me while I risked repetitive motion injury:

• Wow, this 80s/90s music mix is loud and fun
• It's important to have a mindset and intention, even with simple tasks and experiences - what WAS my mindset going into this? And what is it now?
• This is rather meditative, and a great way to practice what I learned in "10% Happier" which I read recently
• I'm really enjoying doing something physical
• Wait, no. Check that. My lats are screaming now that I've been doing this an hour. But... why just my lats?
• Each potato I sort, each bag I toss into the pile is filled with my warmest wishes for a tasty meal and a happy tummy (and I think about my memories of daily family dinners growing up)
• I'm overflowing with gratitude toward the people who work at the foodbank and the fact that I am in a position not to need this service
• I really want mashed potatoes tonight
• That crew of developmentally disabled folks over there are so happy to be here - that's really fun to watch
• I wonder if they ever have to kick anyone out for being a jerk
• I completely misjudged that young man next to me. He is NOT doing mandatory service hours. In fact, he is a hard-working kid of an immigrant family, studying to be an EMT, active in his church, and like a third parent to his very sweet-sounding younger sister in 3rd grade. I'm a huge idiot to have made any assumptions about his beany and baggy shorts. He's even wearing hilarious Sponge Bob socks. Talking with him has been the highlight of my time here.

A friend of mine mentioned to me recently "you seem to be the type of person who gets more out of your work than it takes." I really resonated with that when I heard it, and I kept thinking about it over and over and over again in the middle of potato dirt dust and sweat. And a very simple thing enables that dynamic: being present and curious. Being insanely present to the moment, the movement, the monotony. To the thoughts that come and go, the ideas and flare and fade. I think mindfulness and work go hand in hand, and so much joy can be had if we spend a tiny bit more time being present.

Yeah, I totally got more out of that shift than it took from me. And I am so going back there again to get more.

Forgetting to Remember

I was laid off a couple of months ago, and instead of diving into the chaos of job hunting straight away, I decided to take a sabbatical. I’m sorry to report that it wasn’t all poolside cocktails and spa treatments. It went much deeper and it was a lot harder than I expected. Here are some reflections:

It’s amazing how much we forget

I’m not talking about forgetting why you went into the kitchen. I’m talking about major life stuff we “forget” about as we strive to move onward and upward. There’s huge benefit if we spend time reflecting on our wins and the good things. For me, it goes way beyond a casual, happy thought. It’s a serious business of really thinking about my wins, spending some time with those moments past, maybe even reliving them a little.

For me, I tend to forget what I’ve accomplished, survived, and triumphed over pretty quickly. It often takes a friend to get in my face a little to remind me the such-and-such thing I did two years ago was a really big deal. (May we all have friends that do that for us!)

Why we forget to remember

I understand that psychologically there are many reasons we (or I) do this:

• It’s all we know how to do – just keep moving forward (ingrained thought habits)
• Hedonic adaptation (which this Fast Company article does a great job explaining), which is how our brains simply adapt to good things too quickly
• Negativity bias (see this Psychology Today article on negativity bias), which naturally encourages us to focus on the negative
• We literally have too much going on, and we combat overwhelm by focusing on one thing at a time (which is the next thing we need to do, not the awesome prior thing we just did)
• We don’t register that something we did was actually amazing because we’re too humble in a bad way
• We firmly believe that we won’t actually be successful unless we achieve some other milestone in the future (the next promotion, the next purchase, etc.)

My reflections on remembering

I felt pretty darned good when I looked at all the things I accomplished. It gave me some pretty good perspective on myself. My takeaways were about how much I had indeed done, the wonderful ideas I came up with, the people I helped, the self-discovery I completed, the fun things I’d done… it’s been pretty great, even in the midst of some very difficult, dark things life threw at me.

I learned:

• Learning is like a drug to me, so I will never stop doing it (reading, taking classes, talking to people, watching YouTube)
• I need beauty in my life more than I realized (which translates to me practicing Japanese flower arrangement, coming up with party themes for the kids’ birthdays, my gardening, and my love of costumes and clothing)
• I’m getting pretty good at digging deep for those life goals, articulating them, and then going after them (which is why I now do a vision board + bucket list update every year)
• I absolutely suck at routine and maintenance (which makes me sad, because I am always searching for that perfect power morning routine)
• Holy crap have I grown (as a person!)
• I still want to “write and speak for a living” (which is something I blurted out a long time ago in some therapy or coaching session, didn’t quite understand then, but am staring to understand better now)

I have a practice of spending a whole day with myself every October to reflect and journal. I think I’d like to add a remembering exercise to my usual freeform approach.

What have you forgotten to remember?

Idea for Journal Prompt / Reflection

Create a table or list with space for 10 rows or columns. Each section represents one year of your life. List out all the Big Things that happened in each year for the past ten years. Big Things could be positive or negative, personal or public, in any area of your life. You might need to do this in phases over time to capture everything. 

Once complete:

• What do you see?
• What are you proud of?
• What will you let go of? Hang on to?
• What do you want more or less of?

Possible areas of life to explore:

• Family and Friends
• Finances
• Fun, Hobbies, Learning, Travel, etc.
• Health
• Home, Neighborhood, Region, World
• Romantic Relationships
• Spirituality
• Stuff (like material possessions)
• Work
• Other?