Ich bin Unmotiviert

 

Ash Wednesday Mass was quite helpful for me.  The homily helped me to feel more confident in my biggest goal for Lent, to work hard on being truly forgiving of the two folks who hurt me so very deeply. I have a tremendous amount of work to do in this regard, because even though I had on a few occasions.... thought I have made progress towards forgiveness.... I have still relatively easily fallen back into my own deep seated hurt, anger, and distrust for both of them.  It seems most of my prior work in this regard has been mostly to find ways to ignore them (temporarily) and I was mistaking my better emotional state during those times as me becoming successful at forgiving them.  But, ignoring is not the same as forgiving.  I need to figure out how to truly forgive them, not only because it is the right thing to do philosophically and spiritually.... but it is also important for me to forgive them for my own emotional and physical well being.  

Lent is traditionally thought of as a time of "giving something up".  This has often equated with giving up something you like and want.  But, in a bigger, deeper way, what should be the focus for Lent is to find something deep within you that is wrong, and to work to give up that "wrongness" in order to become more of the good self you would want to be.  

I have other Lenten goals/hopes I am trying to establish as well, but they are still rather nebulous in my mind.   But, I do hope to talk about them as the ideas gel more in the next few days.  In the Lenten homily I was strongly reminded of taking this journey with a PURPOSE.  And, the idea of having my efforts and my actions have PURPOSE is important to me.  

Also, I have been thinking about my pipe journey as well.  I feel it is valuable for me to perhaps re-frame my pipe smoking and also re-frame my "quitting" that I began on Lent four years and two weeks ago:

1.  I am no longer thinking of myself as "quitting" or "having quit" smoking a pipe.  To me, to "quit" something... connotes a sense of leaving and exiling the something.  I do not see my actions over the last four years as actually doing that.  

2.  Instead, I think it is now time to view myself as a pipe smoker who simply is currently not indulging.  It might be semantics, but it feels more accurate. Others here have even sometimes suggested the above to me in comments.  And, I do agree this way of defining myself wears more accurately upon my shoulders.  

3.  I do feel there were some aspects of my pipe journey that needed my effort to "quit".  For instance, I do feel it was good/appropriate for me to have "quit" pipe smoking when frustrated and to have "quit" pipe smoking when feeling angry.  And, perhaps also it was good/appropriate to have "quit" pipe smoking when hurt or sad.   In each of those emotional states, I would often reach for one of my pipes and pipe tobaccos to attempt to sooth or quell my emotions.  Yet, I do know that at least for "frustration" and for "anger" my pipe was not actually helpful (nor was it hurtful though) in resolving those difficult emotions.  I am not as sure if my pipe was helpful or only neutral during times of sadness.  

4.  With my re-framing of my effort as my being a pipe smoker who is currently refraining.... instead of a person who has "quit" pipe smoking, this may help me better determine how to and in which way to proceed on this journey.  

* * * * *

• 11. 1 miles this morning.  
• Still a helluva lot of work to do to get the research students up to snuff.  
• My skin feels so, so very dry.  That is a hard part of Winter.  My face especially, feels so very dry... at least around especially my eyes.  But, also very dry around my nose and forehead.  The furry-faced parts feel normal... probably because the skin underneath is buffeted a bit from the harsh weather.  

With my rather rambling post, I think you can sense I have minimal motivation to do my U work.  Hence the title I gave my post (in German).  

PipeTobacco