I'm on Facebook, being of a Certain Age and definitely of whatever generation it is that enjoys Facebook. A while back, I believe in October, I impulsively started what I called The Gratitude Experiment. Each day I tried to post a statement of gratitude. I never explained to my Friends about what I was doing or what sort of standards I'd made for myself, and in fact I made them up as I went along. I just posted things with the heading "Gratitude Experiment, Day #."
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Gratitude experiment, day 2: I'm grateful that I can enjoy my quirky sense
of beauty, and share it with others in a way that sometimes causes them to see
what I see. As an example, I'm grateful that one day an unseen kid waiting for
their parents at the bank next door went around finding sweetgum seed pods and
tucking them between each picket of my office's fence. They're still there a
month later. I don't know why I haven't taken a picture. |
Here's an easy example of that last benefit: when it was time to go back to work after a satisfying and relaxing vacation, I was not quite ready. I didn't want to be back in the rut. I didn't want to be grateful for the stupid rut. So I thought about what was bugging me, and considered what might be good about it, and posted the following:
"Gratitude experiment day 71: today I am grateful to get back to work. I certainly love my days off, but it's hard to appreciate them properly without a basis of comparison."
Considering how Distractible I am, it's amazing to report that the following January I am still posting numbered Gratitude Experiment posts. I did announce one rule, which is that I'm allowed to skip days for the sake of spending time with loved ones. I announced that as much for me as for my "readership." Like my mom, I have a tendency to follow an self-set rule religiously, but if I break it, I might as well give up for all I care about it anymore. So with this new rule, I wanted to remind myself that even though I was numbering the days, it didn't mean they had to be sequential so I could just calm down thank you.
I will tell you what the rules actually are, for in case you would like to do this. And you should. It's fun, satisfying, and generates good feelings.
The Rules for the Gratitude Experiment
Try to be grateful for one specific thing each day.Tell other people that thing, so that you can share the good feelings.
Try not to repeat yourself, or at least try to come at a subject from a different angle if you do.
Try to be specific.
Give your reasoning.
Especially do this if your day sucks, because that's when it helps the most.
If you need to break the rules, it's ok. This is not supposed to stress you out. Make up new rules if you need to. It's your thing.
I was inspired by someone's photographic experiment. They encouraged folks to try posting a photograph of something that made them happy every day. To be fair, here is the link to that inspiration: The 100 Happy Days Challenge.
So all of this is meant to lead up to my Experiments for 2016.
I like experiments. You don't have to commit. It takes the pressure off, and makes you more likely to bother at all. In fact, here's a gratitude post about it, if I haven't already been excessive with those:
"Gratitude experiment day 67: today I am grateful that my husband and my family, throughout my life, have encouraged or at least accepted my inclination towards behavior experiments. Some have caught on (we always plan our week's meals on a small whiteboard before grocery shopping), some worked for a year then petered off (Media-Free Tuesdays were family game night while my stepson lived here), and some were well-intentioned but shorter-lived (we chose a new donation recipient every month for about four months before collaboration on the choice slowed us down). I love that the experiments don't have to work, you just try them and see. I don't do New Years' resolutions...but I have a couple experiments I plan to try."
So for this new year, I contemplated what I wanted to change about my life. I came up with two things:
- I would like to get back to reading books. I still read a lot, but ever since I got my iPad it's all been articles and blog posts, not books.
- I would also like to learn how to generate creative content more consistently. I've been an artist, writer and dilettante my whole life, but inspiration only comes maybe once every couple of months. It's not enough to look at what I've done; I want things to Do.
Regarding the reading, I decided that the best way to get myself to read more is to put books back in front of my face, meaning on my iPad. I've had the Kindle app all along, and the library's OverDrive app, but I needed to get passwords and usernames and email addresses all linked up, and that was a bit of a pain in the butt. Maybe it's easier for someone who totally grew up with the Internet, but it took me a while. Helpful hint: OverDrive is more of a audible book format so just check out Kindle books from the library and skip OverDrive entirely unless you need that format for a road trip or what have you.
Regarding the generation of creative content...well, that's where this blog post comes in! Kind of.
I had contemplated the idea that one thing keeping me from working on artistic output was that I was relying on impulse. There's nothing wrong with an artistic impulse; in fact, that's how most of these blog posts get written. I made some new block printed thank you cards just last weekend, on an impulse. But if the problem I've identified is that I'm not generating artistic output in a satisfyingly regular way, impulsive efforts are not quite enough.
So I have two plans: schedule art, and take note of artistic output.
In order to remove the requirement for impulsivity, I'm trying to actually schedule an hour (or more) of artistic output each weekend. I'm trying to be as specific as I can, though that can be difficult. This week my "assignment" was to write a blog post, and not just any blog post but an essay about my plan (see?). Next weekend, I have planned to do a one hour still life painting of something floral.
I'm trying to let the type of output vary, largely on my husband's intelligent suggestion. This is a list of my options--as much as I can think of right now:
- music
- guitar
- singing (choral, karaoke, whatever)
- iTunes/Youtube
- mandolin
- ocarina
- 2d
- oil, acrylic, watercolor
- pen and ink
- block prints
- pencil
- computer (Windows Paint, etc)
- paper dolls
- photography
- 3d
- ceramics
- whittling: soap or wood
- stained glass
- household crafts like building shelves
- craft kits already acquired (ie paint that Matryoshka doll, miniature display shelf, etc)
- Sculpey
- papermaking
- woodburning
- writing
- blog posts
- short fiction
- write a play: 2 minute, etc
- essays
- auto-biography
- letters
- theater
- improv
- acting classes
- teaching
- stained glass
- block prints
- painting
- culinary
- they can't all have subheadings.
So my plan is to try to schedule an activity related to one of those things once per weekend. A guitar lesson, an improv class, a blog post, etc.
I also realized that I don't give myself enough credit for the output I DO generate. I want to try and pay attention to that. For example, I experiment with new recipes a lot and am learning some good stuff there, and that really should count as something worthy of note and satisfaction. I also sat around making a Youtube playlist of choral songs I know, and I sang along with them. Purely personal output--only shared with my husband--but perhaps it should count too.
A brief glance at my earlier posting dates for this blog will demonstrate to you the idea that you can't count on me to tell you how this goes. You know what, though? Here's what I'll do. Since I'm cycling through a lot of stuff, a blog post once a month seems like a lot to ask. But I'll write "blog post about progress of experiment" into my datebook for 8 weeks from now, and by golly, if this is working, that's when you'll hear about it.
March 5, 2016. Maybe see you then, no pressure.
