Unsubscribing

Well friends, we are back to the clean slate again, aren't we – back to the famous month of starting over. While I like to think we can wipe our slates clean anytime we feel the need, this particular time comes every 365 days a year, and so impacts us all. Whatever your approach to New Year’s resolutions, I suspect we all feel an inclination toward some kind of resolve in 2012. Forming resolutions can be a lovely and meaningful ritual, working pound-dropping wonders for many. But for others, like me, resolutions can feel like a set up for failure. Though I am quite talented at list making, and on a second’s notice can whip up an impressive list of all that I hope to improve in my life, it would serve only one purpose: to pressure me into failure. To me, lists feel unforgiving. So when I resolve to do something (particularly a whole list of things) and then slip up, the list is burned at once as an offering for the to-hell-with-it gods – which ultimately means I am worse off than I started. That is to say, instead of cutting back on sugar, I might find myself consuming the entire bag of chocolate-covered potato chips or handfuls of peppermints. (Maybe this is my own special brand of psychosis, but somebody out there must relate…anyone?) Since this type of behavior does not serve me so well, in recent years my resolve has tended to be more organic.

The other day, in the spirit of a fresh start, I was clearing clutter from my Gmail inbox – mostly retailer junk mail. Though I do quite like the stores that send me these enticing emails – West Elm, Uncommon Goods, Garnet Hill – I find that their emails serve only as a distraction from satisfaction. With phrases like, Last chance to save and The clock is ticking, the emails also add an undue sense of urgency to my already super busy life. The other day, I was feeling just fine about my current bedding. But no sooner had Garnet Hill emailed me with a New Year’s bedding sale, did I find myself lost in a land of celestial blue, paintbrush flannel sheets and heirloom rose, sateen coverlets – which is to say— in a state of pure coveting. To add to my dissatisfaction, while I am busy convincing myself that I need new bedding (which I haven’t even the money for), I am wasting the valuable writing time I so covet – or at the very least – time that could be used to launder the neglected bedding already in my possession. I do so love shopping, and I seek it out plenty; I do not need it to seek me out. And truly, friends – in a consumer culture like ours, is it not challenging enough to claim contentment already? But I digress…

Call it a spontaneous New Year’s resolution if you like, but on this twelfth day of 2012, rather than purchasing new bedding from Garnet Hill, I took my mouse for a new walk, down to the bottom of the page, in search of that ever elusive word in a tiny-as-fleas font:  unsubscribe. And hear this – with a mere click I was free – gloriously un-subscribed. It was liberating – so liberating I had to do it again – and again – until I’d gone through every vendor in my inbox.

The experience was so empowering that I got to thinking…what else might I unsubscribe from in the coming year? Perhaps I’ll unsubscribe from the junk mail in the inbox of my head – from the negative voices that crowd my mind:  the I’m-not-good-enough voices, the what-will-people-think voices; those inner voices that threaten to paralyze me and the goodness that would flow from my life. Maybe this year, I’ll put myself on a mailing list of love – seek to send more love letters my own way. After all, the more we love ourselves, the more love we have to share with others. I suppose I could also unsubscribe from the negative voices that speak from the outside:  the voices of those who (because of their own negative voices, perhaps) would seek to discourage or belittle, insult or injure. Suppose I no longer allow those voices to rock the boat of my self-worth. Suppose I send those voices out to sea, wish them well on their own journey of unsubscribing. While I’m at it, I might unsubscribe from the collective cultural voices, with their expectations and definitions of success, which I often feel so degraded by:  to hide every gray hair, to shed every last pound, to eradicate every wrinkle, to perfect my wardrobe, to seek fame and fortune…Yes, maybe this year, I will unsubscribe from the mail of untruth – to any mail, whatever the source, that thrives on threatening my sense of satisfaction with who I am and the life I choose. Now if I could only click a button with my mouse. But alas, as I said before, my resolutions are of an organic nature, just like the journey that will move me toward them.

Happy resolving, dear friends – however you go about it.