All Squares are Created Equal
January has 31 squares on the calendar. All squares are created equal and we’re the ones who make some squares more special than others. We tend to make that first square in January special because it can be kind of like the starting gate at a race or the start of a sports game. There’s such energy in “the beginning” of just about everything. But now that it’s close to the end of January I’ve been taking a second look at the squares that are left and I’ve decided to keep that fresh start feeling going in them.
All it takes is a little focus on the wonder of the ordinary. Today I watched an interview on Oprah’s new channel OWN. She interviewed Mark Nepo who wrote The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have. One of his quotes was, “The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.” I think that’s the key to living each square filled with energy and awe. Have you ever heard the term, easy date? Let’s be easy dates! Let’s slow down enough in the course of each square and make sure we get every ounce of love and joy we can sop up before the next square comes.
Mark reminded us to want less and love more of what we have now. He said, “Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond.” and “God is under the porch and on the mountain top.” We are immersed in a miracle called life and as humans we can get buried temporarily in our problems and forget the truth, but if we can pause and breathe we give ourselves a chance to remember we are loved and life is good.
Be easily pleased in the squares you have left; easily pleased starting with yourself and then your family, your friends, your country and your world. Start now to see good more quickly than you see wrong, understand more quickly than you judge, relax more easily than you get upset and laugh more effortlessly than you complain.
Every square can be January first if we practice being thankful for what we have, loving who we’re with, adoring who we are and spreading light by being kind to everyone we come in contact with.
Have you ever noticed it’s easier to have happy squares when you get enough sleep? Let’s be selfish about getting the sleep we need. Let’s be firm about a bedtime that gives us the rest we need. We can’t start our squares with that fresh start feeling if we didn’t go to bed at the right time in the last square. All squares are created equal, but it’s totally up to us how we’ll get the most out of them.

I think most genetically disorganized people love drama. I know I do.
My Aunt Tottie was extremely disorganized and was she ever dramatic! My BO (born organized) mother used to roll her eyes over the way Aunt Tottie lived. She was a lousy housekeeper, wore baggy clothes day in and day out and rarely put on make-up, BUT when she did get cleaned up, she was a KNOCK OUT. Mom said when they were young; Aunt Tottie would get all gussied up to go out dancing and she’d make an entrance that would drop jaws. She said she looked just like Lauren Bacall.
My aunt loved to get a reaction from BOs like my mom. I remember one time; watching her in her messy kitchen, make orange juice from a can of frozen concentrate while she talked with my mom. She couldn’t find a spoon to stir the three cans of water into the orange lump of concentrate, so she just stuck her whole hand into the pitcher and stirred with it. My mother was horrified.
I think one of the payoffs to being disorganized is the reaction we create. We do love drama and the bigger the mess the more fantastic a clean-up will look. When you keep your home “company ready” you lose the drama of being able to say, “Tah Dah!!!!!” When you look good all the time, you just look good all the time and you don’t get to hear “Wow, you look fabulous!!!!!!!!!” We lose the exclamation marks when we get organized, so we need to get them somewhere else.
There are two places you can get them back. One is your creativity. Being disorganized can seem like a curse, but there is a precious gift in it and that is your creativity. In fact you probably already know that your creativity has gotten you into many messes, because when you’re in creative mode you lose track of time. When you get organized you’ll give up the explanation marks for the contrasts between “before” and “after,” but you’ll get them back with rave reviews from what you’ll create when you have an organized life.
The other way to get your exclamation marks is immediate; by watching movies. I think that’s why we love to go to the show, subscribe to Netflix and buy DVDs. It’s probably why prisons show movies. The inmates get to vicariously partake in the drama on the big screen and get it out of their systems. Part of my success at being organized is because I include watching at least two movies each week into my routine.
Your assignment (should you agree to take it) is to get your drama fix from a good movie this week, not from a real life mess. Make it a weekly must as you have fun getting organized.
Then, when your life is organized you’ll start getting a parade of exclamation marks because the world needs what you have to create.

New Year! New Day! New eyes! I love fresh starts filled with new resolve, but I don’t bust out on January 1 like a bucking bronco that’s just been let out of his shoot at a rodeo. New Years Day for me is always a big rest day. I like to stay in my pajamas and bathrobe, fix a big breakfast and talk about the fun we had the night before at our annual New Year’s Eve party.
Every year since we built our home here in Woodland, we host a New Years Eve party, for the neighborhood, but with a slight twist. We celebrate using Eastern Standard Time. So when the Time Square Ball drops at midnight in New York (we watch it on CNN) it’s nine o’clock here on the west coast and everybody at our party cheers, kisses and goes home! By 9:30 PM we’re in bed!
Back to the first day in January, I like to spend it evaluating. One of my dear friends who came to the party told me that she has a pretty notebook she only writes in once a year on January 1. She gets the book out and reads what she wrote the year before and then she writes the thoughts that come to her throughout the day that apply to the new year. She said it’s so fun to look back and see what her goals and thoughts were for the last year and see what she learned and accomplished and it helps her reevaluate her goals and dreams for the current year.
Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote, “Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy. That’s one of my goals for 2012; to begin each day proclaiming my eagerness to learn through joy.
While I was resolving to be joyful, my new IPhone 4S (I guess that’s really a big deal) Terry gave me for Christmas was quietly charging getting ready to hurdle me into the 21st century’s cutting edge communications system.
Unfortunately, my joyful New Year’s Resolution went right through the window which was almost followed by that piece of uhhhhh equipment I’ve vowed to master this month. The part that really ticks me off is everyone (under 12) says these things are so easy to use. This week I’m going to the AT&T store and give myself another chance to learn with joy. (I’ll text you if that happens.)