I’ve been on a mission to find one thing in each day and make it slightly less sucky.
Not big, meaningful, important things.
It’s more like finding some small bit that’s grating or jangling. And then removing it.
Replacing, rewriting, adjusting, deleting, translating it. Easing friction in some form.
It’s a form of play.
It forces me to think in terms of what Hiro calls perfect simple solutions:
What’s a playful, creative, possibly-elegant way to turn this thing I don’t like into something I don’t mind, don’t notice, or maybe even kind of enjoy?
Like this one.
I get spam phone calls on my cell phone from the same two numbers. Several times a day.
Being on the Do Not Call list doesn’t help. Reporting the evil little bastards doesn’t help. They ring all the time and I get annoyed each time and then I end up turning off my phone for days or even weeks, which also doesn’t help.
Last week I gave the spammy numbers the most relaxing ringtone I could find. And I named them.
Now when I hear beautiful bells ringing, I look at my phone and it says:
Breathe! No response necessary.
It’s a reminder to pause (paws!). And that not everything requires a response, which is useful.
These reminders are even better because past-me planted them for Slightly Future Me, and now here I am.
Magic.
Anyway, I’m starting to think that everything that annoys me has some sort of counterpart — the not-as-evil twin? — that doesn‘t annoy me. Or is even kind of pleasant. Kind of useful.
So I’m looking for the places and patterns in my life (physical stuff, systems issues) that need attention.
Anything that is half-working but half-falling-apart. And I’m looking for the silliest and most unlikely ways to turn those things around.
And when I can’t find creative solutions, I do Shiva Nata on it until something comes up.
But not all at once.
One thing each day.
I’m not necessarily changing anything right away.
Just identifying what sets me off. Taking notes on what I react to, how I react and how it feels.
And then thinking about what I want to see, hear, feel, perceive, experience instead.
One thing.
Kind of like the do just one thing thing or the do ten things thing. Thing-thing!
Play? Brainstorming party?
One thing you want to experiment with.
One thing you’d like to turn around and find the counterpart for.
Or a bunch of things. Or just a giant Where’s Waldo doppelgänger-finding party.
As always: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their own experience and we don’t give each other unsolicited advice. Though of course if you want help and ideas from the other commenter mice, ask away.
And if someone would make me a virtual cup of throat-soothing tea, I would appreciate that. I might kind of be losing my voice and that sucks because today is Rally (Rally!).
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Changing the ringtone for the spam = genius! I have lots of little things that pick at me. I should perhaps start making a list and thinking of ways that they could be turned around. Thanks for the inspiration!
*about the spammy phone calls* I love you!
Ooh! Serendipity! I was already doing something like this!
The kitchen needs cleaning today. A lot of cleaning. However, I am not doing a drudge-like, grungy, Sisyphean task: I am creating a work of art, with the kitchen as my canvas and my medium.
I love your Phone Spam Solution! (Is that just one guy?)
The one thing of the day!
= email
what could be a perfectly simple solution?
1. postponing it (hehehe) till tomorrow
2. having a party about it tomorrow, with no other tasks and with a giant hat or prop of some sort
3. combining tomorrow’s party with post-party rewards
4. before responding to emails – send out the emails I WANT TO SEND
HAH
there
Spam phone calls – I think there is a “silent” ringtone that you can download.
I did something similar with a person whose calls I simply did not want to take. Helped enormously. For my husband’s calls, I have a very silly tune that makes me smile when I hear it……
This is such a great idea! I’m going to adopt it as a part of my ongoing quest to make my life feel better in every way. Systems are a huge sticking point for me right now, so perhaps I will start there.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
What a terrific practice. There’s no shortage of things that suck/are annoying/could be better.
The one that’s on my mind is my neighbor’s barky dog. I have no ideas about how to make that suck less. Perhaps I should pick something within my control to try first.
I call this the “Now think like an engineer” approach.
I have a marketing background and this engineer approach has an origin in that:
If a customer service representative has to keep answering the same question over and over on the phone. The marketing manager will try to find better ways for the customer service person to answer – smile on the phone, speak clearly etc…
While an engineer will simply install a friendly recording, solving the problem at the base.
A little dehumanizing but I’ve been implementing the “engineer approach” for a while now.
Examples:
1. I hate to pair up socks. it takes up a lot of time and, no, it’s not an opportunity to be mindful.
So my engineer solution is: when putting them in the rack in the first place, put one, leave a space, place another and then fill up the spaces with the missing socks!
2. I hate my low battery ring on the cell. I tried, reminders: plug the cell at night, plug the cell in the morning.
Engineer approach: buy a second charger and leave it at work.
3. The most ambitious one. I hate to cook. LOATHE IT.
Every night it was misery, every trip to the grocery store, dishwashing, and inviting people over… even just handling the food, the onion smell… argh!
I purchased the ultimate superkitchenmachine. Forked out a lot of money sacrificing a lot of other purchases and solved my dinner dilemma. I haven’t recovered from the expense, and I’m cloth swapping all over the place, but it was so worth it.
(if you’re curious as to what machine that is, you can google that superkit… term, althought I think it’s not for sale in the US.)
That’s such a genius solution! If I got spam phone calls, I would totally adopt it.
For a while, it was driving me crazy to be constantly jumping up and checking the call display on the landline every time it rang, until I realized that nobobdy EVER phones me on the landline (they’d call my cell phone), so really I can just ignore it and let whoever it’s actually for answer it.
Right now I need ways to get out of the house more without cutting into my work time – or ways to get outside more also without cutting into work time.
– I could do my writing outside, the parts of it that don’t require internet.
– I could see if our wireless signal works in the backyard . . . do we even still have a wireless network. Check that.
– I could head to campus and borrow their wireless signal and find a comfy place to work
This is so timely — I just added a heading “one small thing” to my white board a few days ago, and I’ve been using it to do one small thing that will improve my life. Usually this is cleaning something that’s been bugging me, but it’s also stuff like refilling the hand soap that’s running out, putting away (or finding a place for) one thing that’s been in my way, or finding a solution to a small niggling problem.
When I think of a small thing, I write it on the board in orange, and then when I do it, I give myself a yellow-gold star right on top. Instant sparklepoints!
I can’t think of anything that I could play with at the moment (but I am now on curious-mouse-detective mode), but I do have an example to share that is kind of really embarrassing in its obvious solution-ness.
A couple of winters ago, I spent several months lamenting how early I had to get up in the morning on hair-washing days (which is every other day for me) so that I had time for my hair to air-dry before leaving the house.
I think it was about three months before it hit me that I could buy a hairdryer.
And then another two before I decided to investigate my but hairdryers are so expensive! story (and discovered that hairdryers are actually – by my standards – cheap).
* * *
I love the idea of making this into a game, a thing-finding puzzle. More ways to have a playful, conscious relationship with my world, by being the seeker-outerer-of.
@Isolde I am salivating over the superkitchenmachine. I currently have a male-shaped version, but if he ever gets sick of cooking every night, this is totally going to be my recourse. ¡Que solución fantastica!
This is brilliant! Instead of walking around annoyed, you can walk around actively engaged in creative solutions. I will definitely try this tomorrow-how to choose which thing…
The phone spammer aikido trick is head-spinningly brilliant.
I sing a burst of Let’s Sway! a la David Bowie in Let’s Dance when we get aftershocks. (Put on your red shoes and dance the blues!) I think I got the idea from the story about the place that rings the bell when the train rumbles by.
Have to see what I can ease up with this counterpart finding.
Oh, love. Appearing quietly in your vicinity and handing you a nice warm cup of tea with lemon (but no honey, because I’m guessing you can’t have that.) xx
Serendipity again – I’ve also been trying to make things into a game recently and this is a great next step.
Love this idea.
I haven’t been to your blog in awhile, so just coming back here could already count as today’s “find one thing in each day and make it slightly less sucky” since my life on the internet has been sucky lately. (This got me thinking that a really good way to make a blog/online existence better is to surround yourself with great internet people.)
But since this is such a great idea and I don’t want to cheat, I’ll be thinking of a way to make driving around less sucky. Because of where I work, I do a lot of driving, so making that better would make lots of things better. I’m thinking something like audio books might be one answer.
That is super genius about the spam calls.
This makes me look forward to when I move, because I won’t have a landline anymore so I’ll actually give people my cell number, and turn the ringer on, and will delightfully assign various ringtones.
Like ringing the bell!
Havi, I was thinking of all the things I’ve learned from reading your blog when I wrote my marriage vows a few months ago. When I got married this last weekend, so many people told me afterwards how much they enjoyed them. I started lurking here right after I got engaged, and I give you and your wonderful community so much credit for helping my new husband and me cultivate such a “conscious, intentional, loving” relationship with ourselves and each other.
I love this – especially the relaxing ringtone for spam calls, but also especially the whole positive approach. It can change everything.
I have to find a way to make vacuuming up the kitty litter on the floor around the litter box less onerous.
Havi, you’re a genius for assigning relaxing ringtones to those spam callers. Now it’s like you’re receiving a direct call from the universe to pause and breathe. Fabulous!
Such a beautiful post Havi, thank you. Turning your spammy phone calls into breathing reminders?! Freaking brilliant.
I used my label maker for the very first time and labeled all of my son’s vhs movies while organizing his bookshelf and I have to say that the tiny, neat labels and realizing that we have a bunch of cool movies versus CRAP WE’RE NOT USING made me happier than anything has in a week. A little thing…so thankful I was able/inspired to make something BETTER.
I love this post. I read it a long time ago, and I finally decided to find it again after experiencing a ton of spam calls.
(Actually they are collection agencies but I don’t have any money for them so there’s no point in me talking to them. Also I hate it when phone number I don’t know call and then don’t leave a message.)
I’ve had one number that’s called me about 10 times a week for the past 5 months. And another one that just started calling lately. Ugh.
So I found this post, and named one of the numbers Breathe, and the other DFTBA (which means Don’t Forget To Be Awesome). Breathe just called me. How considerate of them to remind me to breathe!
Thank you.