A Valuable Waste of Time

Day in, day out, I accomplish a lot of stuff.

Blog stuff (my stamping blog happily consumes a lot of my time).

Family financial stuff (you try finding out how much you paid for Horizon Health Corp stock back in 1997).

Housewife stuff (I do clean, you know...more than I like to admit given the general chaos of my house).

Pet owner stuff (two vet appointments in one week at two different vets).

Volunteer stuff (meal ministry, Stephen ministry).

Bible study stuff (class most Tuesdays, lots of reading).

Mommy stuff (oy vey!).  

Good and important stuff. There's so much stuff, in fact, that some stuff (like housekeeping) falls short of my best work. Isn't it funny how we often admire people who excel at things we only wish we excelled at. I have a friend (Karen, you know who you are) whose house has been immaculate every time I've set foot in it...even when I once dropped by without calling. I wish my house were immaculate every time someone stopped by.

But it isn't because, as much as I wish it were, I simply don't keep it that way. I'm the only neat freak in a house of rampant hoarders and decided years ago that I would go insane keeping my house clean enough for me. So it's just clean enough.

What do I do that keeps me sane (or at least functioning) when I could be striving for a really clean house or for perfection in all the other stuff I do?

I waste time doing things that make me happy.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the website Pinterest makes me very happy.

Pinterest acts like a virtual idea board. People pin (upload) gorgeous photos of all sorts of stuff: nature scenes, interior decor, architecture, fashion, baby pictures, wedding announcements, artwork, signs, urban chic scenes...you know, stuff. When users at Pinterest see photos they like, they can repin them to create their own unique idea boards.

It's all an enormous waste of time.

And I love it.

You have to love a place where you can find photos with quotations and sayings like these.

That last one is particularly true for me. So very true.

Anyway, it's easy to sink hours into scrolling through hundreds of pictures looking for quotations and sayings that make me happy. In fact, I'm happier wasting time on Pinterest looking for quotations than I am doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku, and reading murder mysteries combined.

I'm not sure what this says about me, exactly, but I have a pin that covers the situation:

I want this sign.

But I'm an English major at heart, and that means I can always invent an explanation when I need one. We English majors thrive on quotations that embody other people's cleverness. We mine for them like Snow White's seven dwarves mined for rubies and diamonds. We devour them like Grendel devoured King Hrothgar's men in Beowulf. We feel compelled to share them like Daisy feels compelled to share her glorious golden fur.

We're weird that way.

Of course, Pinterest isn't all quotations and sayings. It also contains visual beauty.

And humor. Lots of wonderful humor.

There are also lots of pictures of clever craft projects that I absolutely must make. Don't you think I need a Thankful Tree? Doesn't everyone need a Thankful Tree? I never would have thought up Thankful Trees on my own, but as soon as I saw this picture, I knew I needed to make one for myself. Because it's so me.

And these adorably simple gift bags...these, too, are so me. And I have that border punch. Oh yes I do!

And that, I think, is the appeal of Pinterest. You're bound to find stuff that is you: sayings that reflect your values and beliefs or tickle your funny bone, rooms that you want to live in, places you want to visit, projects you wish you'd thought of yourself, clothes you want to wear, food you want to eat, images that speak to your heart and soul and fill you with joy or peace or both.

And the fact that this stuff that is so you is presented in pretty pictures for your perusal in your pjs makes Pinterest just about perfect.

Whenever I think of Beowulf, I start getting all alliterative. Sorry.

You'll also find the occasional picture that helps you put your stuff--all the tedious, boring, important, interesting, daily stuff you have to do and want to do and dread doing--in perspective.

I can soooo live with that.

But I'd add the missing commas for clarity.

Note: Despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not been paid in any way to promote Pinterest. I'm just obsessed and hoping to infect others with my obsession so they, too, can waste time valuably.  

Things on Thursday: Less than a Week to Go!

As the commercial says, it's the most wonderful time of the year! Nick looks like the children in the ad. Jack, on the other hand, can't wait for next Wednesday.

Today, we're going to Nick's school to practice his locker combination. It's hard to believe my boy will have a locker and that he wanted a messenger bag instead of a backpack. I hope the whole locker thing gets him a tiny bit excited for school. Since school isn't a choice, it's much better to have a good attitude about it.

Life is easier if you're a geek, you know.

The Difference between Adults and Children

Here's a picture of pure childhood joy standing on an inflatable in a lake.

Here's a picture that further contextualizes that joy.

Children do not feel cold. Adults, however, do not consider it advisable to get into a lake when the air temperature is 65 degrees F and the breeze is gusting to twenty miles per hour. Instead, adults put on a coat.

Joy comes in many temperature settings.

Fitting In and Group Think, Part 1

My recent readings on happiness repeatedly emphasize our human need to be part of a social group. We are social animals who need the healthy company of other humans from birth. Babies denied human touch, for instance, develop abnormally, while babies who receive plenty of touch grow more active brains. Much of childhood involves learning how to interact with others: first with our family, then with larger groups like church or school or athletic teams.

The best advice I received when I headed off to college was to join a group. Any group would do; it just had to be a collection of people with a common interest and sense of community within the larger community of the university. My high school class numbered in the seventies; my freshman class at Duke numbered over 1,100. That’s a big change, and finding a group helped me feel a sense of belonging.

My group was Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity founded by an Eagle Scout who felt that once he went to college, opportunities to continue his commitment to service had thinned considerably. The fraternity went  co-ed in the 1970s, but all members are called brothers, regardless of gender. Its motto is "Be a Leader. Be a Friend. Be of Service." I pledged first semester freshman year, and it was one of the smartest things I did at Duke.

Pledging APO was radically different from pledging a traditional Greek fraternity or sorority because APO isn’t exclusive. If you do everything required of a pledge, you are in. No one sits in judgment of how well you fit with the group, and you can't be rejected because your nose is too big or your mommy wasn't a sister or you don't drink.

APO’s purpose is to serve the fraternity, university, community, and country with volunteer activities; all willing hands are welcome. Pledges make a paddle and get it signed by the brothers, interview the brothers to learn about them and bond with them, attend meetings, and participate in a certain number of hours of service. That's it.

And yes, while I pledged, I was kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken blindfolded to an undisclosed location. Nothing scary or hurtful or humiliating happened, though. We just laughed a lot and had fun.

In my years as a brother, our chapter only denied one pledge membership…and we encouraged him to re-pledge. For reasons that I don’t recall, he hadn’t attended many meetings, hadn’t interviewed more than a few brothers, and hadn’t met the hours of service required. Most of us didn’t know him at all. It took several hours of debate for us to decide his fate, and most of the brothers felt horrible about the need to deny his membership.

Isn’t that a pretty cool group to be a part of? Even then, I was all about inclusion.

Anyway, I made friends in classes, but my APO brothers were my family-away-from-home, a great comfort and support and encouragement for me through a rough time in my life. Together, we helped Girl Scouts sell cookies, threw parties for underprivileged children in the Durham community, winterized battered women’s shelters, painted public housing, tutored in the Durham city schools, and raised money for important causes.

We also laughed—a lot. One day, a brother named Wilder and I went through boxes in the APO office and found an old award plaque for, of all things, potato chip sales. We decided to award the extremely pointless plaque to a random brother for a random reason each meeting. Whoever received it one week would then make up a reason to present it to someone else the next.

Wilder, a fellow English major, presented me with the plaque after giving a gripping analysis of its phallic imagery. He noted that since I was married and thus the only APO brother who could legally have sex in the state of North Carolina, I deserved such a richly symbolic plaque.

The following week, I cleverly analyzed the plaque for Christ symbols and awarded it to our resident Christ-figure: the only brother with a beard.

These are the sorts of trivial, stupid activities that encourage esprit de corps. We need silliness and fun in our social lives, don’t we?

I wrote here that we get what we give in life, and that is certainly true of our membership in groups. I gave APO a lot and got more in return. Just having the pin didn’t mean anything; what mattered was day-to-day participation. I encouraged my fellow brothers, and they encouraged me.

Ever since my time in APO, I’ve recognized my need to be part of a group, part of something bigger and better than myself, one person among many with a common purpose. Over the next few weeks, I will ruminate about groups and belonging, as well as what it feels like to be excluded and marginalized. This week, however, I’d appreciate your sharing which groups—other than family—have contributed to your happiness. Did your group have any silly ritual or inside joke that helped to bond them?

For me, right now, church provides the best social groups, especially in a long-term Bible study and Stephen Ministry. Our Bible study has a running joke about how we never finish all the topics for discussion each week. For Stephen Ministry, the jokes are often about boxes of tissues and how much we need them each week; we're a bunch of sappy weepers.

Now it’s your turn! Please do share!