Will Power and the Brain

Boy have I been neglecting this blog thing. I guess that happens. I read recently that when you exercise extreme willpower in one area, you are bound to lose will power in others, and I find that remarkably reassuring! That means if you are trying to cut back on shopping, for example, you may find yourself binge-eating Ben and Jerry's "because you deserve it." Oh, and if you are trying to cut calories, science says your brain pretty much eats itself and you turn into a zombie. Ha. Silly BRain.

So I've been neglecting my blog, I suppose, because I'm diving into some intense will-power stuff this month.

Based off a health and marriage challenge--for the month of September I have done my best to be completely VEGAN. For anyone still under a rock, vegan means eating no meat, fish, dairy or eggs. Oh, and if that is not insane enough, I thought it would be fun to throw "no added sugar" onto my list. So pretty much the first few weeks of September I have been wreathing from sugar withdrawal and focused on surviving the knot in my stomach from hunger and bizarre new foods. As time goes on, I have learned tolerable ways to digest food (with actual protein) without resorting to snacking all-day-long on pine-nuts and peanut butter. Okay, I still sort adore peanut butter.

More on that challenge later...

Another major challenge in will-power this month has been cultivating the discipline to be organized enough to TEACH. I've been INCREDIBLY thankful to get a (very) part-time job teaching Journalism to middle school students at the same K-8 school my daughter MB now attends. It's been about two weeks; I think every day I teach I love it--and these students--a little bit more. No gag-reflex necessary, this is (shock) not sarcasm but actual gratitude! Yep. Tomorrow we are off to Barnes and Noble for a field-trip that (also gasp) I'm really looking forward to!

And if this month hasn't been strange enough, I also got steady gig drawing art: a stream of part-time work in a style that I adore. This connection came so out-of-the-blue--nicely timed.

With all the stress about job-hunting this year, I think it is awfully funny that I never did get some "HOT-SHOT" job as a Director or anything. But at the moment I have basically THREE part-time jobs (another potential for editing) in areas that I adore: teaching, writing and art. Life has a funny way of giving us what we need and not what we (thought we) wanted.

I'm not breaking the bank, but my brain is pretty dang-happy to be so busy in some of the right places. In case you get a chance to practice some important will-power this week, consider giving yourself the grace to remember that you will likely drop-the-ball in some unrelated way. Science says so. HA. It's all part of the package..silly brain.