Stymied? Change one thing
Change one thing — and all the rest changes.
B.F. Skinner, the behaviorist, was famous for prescribing better environments to create better humans. It’s also true that changing one thing changes your environment . . .
Right now my sister is working on one simple thing that is going to make her mental life soooo much less cluttered. Charlie, her man, just might love her more, if that’s even possible. . . . She is after all my adorable sister, so it’s entirely possible that his love is already bursting over the brim. He might already be brimming.
I won’t write about it just yet — I’ll wait till the success speaks for itself. But I can say that it only involves 15 minutes a day.
If she fails I’ll write about it too, because sometimes nothing succeeds like massive embarrassment. That’s the kind of love we demonstrate in our family.
Years ago, alarmed at my fattening self, I changed one thing. I started a walking program. Four and a half hours a week. When I look back now that was the beginning of this me here today, the one who is in a far better mental, physical and spiritual state than before I began. And it all started with one thing.
Though revolutionary changes can be cathartic if the new ground can be held, for most of us it is the incremental tweak that changes the arc of a life. Tweak upon tweak upon tweak and you are doing finger push-ups just because.