Day {Eleven}

{Day 11 A bad habit}




Thank goodness this is day 11. I have had 11 days (plus 2 weekends and a major holiday) to think about this question. And not because I don’t have any bad habits, but because I was having a difficult time picking just one bad habit that was also not so bad that I could still share with the great unknown.


I am a huge quitter. The very first time it dawned on me was actually when my father told me in the heat of a very intense argument we were having. It was mean and spoken out of anger but after much contemplation over the words, I do realize that this is a very big personal flaw of mine.


I went to college for 5 years. I couldn’t decide on a major and finally experienced some major burnout (combined with some enormous debt) so I quit.


Aside from my current position, I’ve never held a job more than 2 years. I get bored and move on. The only reason I’ve had this job for 4 years is because for the first 2 years I did one job role and then got a promotion into another role for the next 2 years. I just passed my second anniversary in this role and I am beginning to feel the burnout.


I begin Bible studies and quit around page 32. I start blogs and then don’t post anything for months. I create budgets and then ignore them by the second pay period. I start habits that would make excellent traditions but that don’t make it past the first year.


Reading back over what I’ve written, I feel the need to justify myself to myself. Just because I am a huge quitter doesn’t mean that while I’m at work I don’t give 126%. Just because I went to school for 5 years doesn’t mean that I am dumb – I did very well in school and continue to love to learn. Everything I have started has begun with the very best of intentions. I really mean to improve my life or the lives of those around me with my efforts. I just have a difficult time following through.


Ever since the night my dad said that to me, I have made it my mission to prove him wrong. At the beginning of the year I declared my word for the year to be {quality}. I have meditated over this word each time I begin to quit something or I feel the burnout begin. And I can see changes taking place. I have observed myself following through on things that I seriously considered quitting. A lot of the problem, I have realized, is my attitude. My burn out can easily be curbed by finding something to liven up the current situation. Work got incredibly overwhelming for a while, and then immediately got slow. I am finding tasks to do to improve work flow for not just myself, but my teammates as well (when I apply myself, I really am a smart cookie).


We put the Christmas tree up last night and it was very rushed because I usually do it on the weekend or when I have the entire day off. I only had a couple of hours so I had to work quite a bit faster. But going through our boxes I found several things that we have worked on making tradition over the last couple of years and I truly hope that we can continue to do them over the next several years.


This isn’t really a tradition, it just happens to be something that we’ve done each year. Our parents were wonderful about giving us and keeping meaningful ornaments throughout the years (Sean just has to look a little harder for his, there’s no telling where they’ve been stored!). For the last couple of years we’ve “borrowed” an ornament from our childhood to add to our tree. Sean has brought his set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ornaments from when he was a kid and a little Rudolph ornament had his brother’s name inscribed in it from 1985 (why doesn’t anyone do those tin type ornaments anymore?). I have several ornaments noting the first 5 years of my life so in about 18 more years I should have them all on my tree.


This tradition isn’t very original. When we put up our first Christmas tree we bought an ornament to commemorate our very first home. Last year we bought a silver bell and had it inscribed “Just Married” with the year. This year, we are very excited to receive in the mail (today) our 2011 ornament:

Finally, this is my very favorite tradition. I’ve sent Christmas cards out for each year we’ve been in the house. I’ve kept one of the Christmas cards and put our usual greeting that we’ve sent to everyone else (it’s usually the “oops” card that I’ve misspelled a word or have the very worst handwriting). On the back I write the year and put down 5 things that we have accomplished or the things we did for Christmas. The first year I was so excited to write that we bought a house! We also went to see Sherlock Holmes that Christmas night. The second year, we got married! We also put all of our money into improving the house and stayed home on Christmas night because Sean had to work. This year, Sean got into and began Radiology School! We were able to eliminate all car payments and will be having Christmas dinner at our house on Christmas Eve.