You know you're a Minnesotan if you're chomping at the bit to go to lunch and enjoy the nice weather today... and "nice weather" means that it's 34 and sunny.
We Minnesotans can't help it. We set our standards low in the winter, and frankly, 34 can feel downright balmy when it has been 15 degrees out for the past couple of weeks. :).
Ok, that wasn't really what I was going to blog about today. It was just an observation that made me giggle, so I had to share.
On to the real topic: Lately I have been waking up between 1 and 3 am almost every morning, -Night. let's face it. 3am is still night and no one should EVER be awake at this time - and almost immediately my mind starts racing. I struggle to shut it off and get back to sleep, and I cannot figure out why this is happening. I am neither overly stressed nor am I depressed, and I am not experiencing any anxiety about anything that I can identify.
I. Feel. Fine. So, WTF?
Anyhoo, my midnight wake-ups don't stress me out too much, but I just wonder why it is happening.
The point of this is that during the witching hours, my hyper-drive mind starts not only replaying parts of my day over and over in my head, but I also seem to think of random musing, blog topics, food-for-thought, and what would otherwise be known as "philosophical thoughts". I'm not saying that suddenly, at 3am, I become deeply profound, but I have been known to think up a long overdue witty comeback to a friend's comment (your brain's a thin candy shell...), or come up with a random, yet completely true, analogy that is useful to no one (grilled cheese: the white man's quesadilla...)
Last night I had an idea for a blog topic, and I could not get it out of my head. I think I was afraid to go back to sleep lest I forget about this deeply intriguing topic. I decided that it would help me relax my mind if I wrote down a note about it. So that's what I did, and lo and behold, I was able to get back to sleep!
Here's what I wrote:
"Brains and muffins. too many choices make us unproductive and shapeless. Having muffin tin helps mold us into something useful and appealing to others".
Hmm, in the light of day this idea does not sound nearly as profound as it did last night. But here is what I think I was trying to say:
When you make muffins, you pour them into a muffin tin and that is what gives them their shape.
Everyone looks at that very common shape and identifies it as a muffin. If you take the muffin mixture and pour it onto a cookie sheet, you get a shapeless blob. No one finds it as appetizing as the muffin-shaped morsel. No one would ever be stuck on a desert island, starving, and fantasizing about muffin blobs. The shape of the muffin is what give the muffin its purpose, its mission... it's IDENTITY.
So it is with the human mind. Minds are like muffins.
In this new-age culture of ours, we are all encouraged to "do it all", "want it all", "have it all". The sky is the limit! The possibilites are endless! You no longer have to choose between being a housewife or being a librarian. Now you can be a Housewife Librarian Doctor with a PhD in Dog Training Management and a minor is Eastern Medicine. AND YOU CAN EARN THAT DEGREE ONLINE!
GO FOR IT. don't sell yourself short. Don't settle for the simple things for which our mothers or fathers or grandparents had to settle.
Essentially we have been encouraged to make ourselves into muffin blobs. Take your brain and your talents and pour them out on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 18-25 years. Don't mold yourself into a shape. Shapes are so permanent. Blobs are so free-form. So new-age. So chic! Everyone's doing it.
But as an adult, I personally have been feeling more and more lost with each day that passes by. Great, the world is my oyster, but how do I get to the ocean? I sometimes wish I had LESS options to choose from. I sometimes long for the feelings of confinement and restriction that come from limited options.
Perhaps we are not meant to have everything in this life. Maybe we are meant to think a little smaller than we have been thinking and maybe we ARE supposed to settle for less. When I look at people, and at couples, who seem genuinely happy, they are content with the little things in life. They are not constantly trying to grab the world by the ass and they are not trying to strive for all things greater and bigger and better than what they have now. They are not trying to shake every last leaf off the tree. Instead they are content to just rake the ones that have fallen off of the tree. They focus inwardly on their values more than they focus outwardly on the other "stuff".
Ok, enough of my cynicism and over-blown analogies. I have no resolutions to this observation except for to suggest that sometimes we should all just consider thinking "smaller". Get back to basics. Learn what your values are and then define your life by these things instead of defining them by your stuff, your status or your wealth.
Think of new ways to shake up your life that don't include moving to a different city, accumulating new debt or acquiring a new spouse. Think of ideas that can make an impact on your smallness!
Think a little today about how you can be smaller and how you can better shape yourself into a mold. The possibilities are endless, people. Think like a muffin. THINK INSIDE THE TIN!!!
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