Are you too busy? Are you working too hard? Or are you simply overextended and overcommitted?

Only you can define too busy. Some humans never see themselves as overcommitted.  They take over the publicity for the Kitty Cat Foster Care event at the mall without a moment’s thought.  Kudos to all the people holding up our charities and coordinating our picnics, all the while going to jobs and raising children and even managing date nights with their spouses.

But I think I’ve stumbled on an event that qualifies as a warning shot across the bow of our lives. Do you have a favorite TV series you have dropped? Or one you liked but just let slip?

Now sometimes series have to go. “Father Brown” has just delivered too many disappointing episodes in the recent past.  Here’s a line from an episode guide: “Yet when a petrol can is found and the head brewer Martin claims he saw her last night before the fire, Grace is arrested by Inspector Mallory for her own father’s murder.” Of course she’s arrested! Any cop on the series at this point is clearly in early or even later stages of dementia. Extraordinarily dumb cops should at least be funny.  These guys are simply annoying. Not to mention badly dressed.

Um… back to the point. When you start dropping series you like with intriguing characters and solid plotlines, maybe it’s time to step back and examine your daily life.

Why don’t you have time for Dr. Who? Who or what is more important than Dr. Who? Why did you shelve Who?

Life coaching advice: If you journal, grab a journal. If you don’t, any piece of foolscap will do. Write down the reasons why you are missing (Good Show that I Know I Like).

Maybe you just need to do a series record on the DVR. Maybe you need Netflix. Maybe you have found other, preferred activities such as sketching. But if the reason comes down to “no time,” you should investigate why time is slipping away from you.

Time can be reclaimed — once we know where it’s hiding.

 

 

(This device enables you to be hands-free while eating your burger. You put it over your neck somehow.)

Yesterday morning, trending on Yahoo was especially entertaining.

1.       Megan Rapinoe

2.       Charlie Sheen

3.       Jessica Alba

4.       Dalia Dippolito

5.       Home Alarm Systems

6.       Background Check

7.       Taylor Swift

8.       Tupac Shakur

9.       SUV Lincoln Navigator

10.   Kylie Jenner

No wonder we need life coaches. The whole world and chunks of the universe at our fingertips, multiple search engines to take us on our journeys, and where do we travel? To visit Megan Rapinoe and Charlie Sheen?

I’ll start with the observation that that list has too many people. The only nonhuman nouns: Home alarm systems, background check and SUV Lincoln Navigator. Well, that’s cheery!

I will note that Tupac has now been deceased for over two decades — unless you are part of the O.G. crowd. Tupac Shakur O.G. or Ostensibly Gone was purported to have passed away in 1996. Not everyone believes he’s gone. I remember a former student explaining to me that Tupac’s death was a clever ploy to lay low; his honesty had netted him so many enemies that he could not continue in a public lifestyle.

He’s been laying low for quite awhile now.

Tupac’s presence at #8 is not strange. The film All Eyez on Me was released on June 16, 2017 and has made a respectable $44 million or so. I’d say Tupac is the most interesting entry on the above list, film or no film.

But I’d like to suggest my own response to the trend list. Don’t follow! Never click! I’ve been guilty of clicking myself. The next thing I know I have launched onto relationships I never knew about by people I have never heard of. Apparently WBNA superstar Sue Bird has announced she is dating Seattle Reign and USWNT star soccer player Megan Rapinoe.

I mean, I’m happy for them, don’t get me wrong. But these are the minutes of my life. (Some of which I spent yesterday reviewing Tupac’s biography.) I don’t get them back. I don’t get to use a time turner necklace to reclaim my minutes so I can finish the painting in the basement instead.

EVERY CHOICE WE MAKE CARRIES OPPORTUNITY COSTS. I might have been catching up on Agents of Shield instead of reading about the unknown Megan. Obviously, I don’t want to say we should always be using our time for profound and noble purposes. But if you want to catch up on Supernatural or weed the garden, it won’t happen while you are clicking on Jessica Alba.

Do you honestly care what is happening with Jessica Alba? If you do, click away. The problem is that most of us are never more than seconds away from a search engine. Clicking/tapping becomes too easy and sometimes even automatic.

Today’s advice is simple:

1. Try to be mindful of clicks. They tend to become background noise even as we surf our minutes away.
2. Ask yourself: What could I be doing instead?
3. Try buckwheat honey in your cocoa. Put in a little less chocolate. I love this combination.

 

 

 

“When two paths open before you, take the harder one,” it says.

I’d say proverbs like this are one reason why the world needs life coaches and mental health professionals. No. Simply no. File this proverb away with “True love is truly amazing only when it’s truly true.” What?!?? Some sayings are simply silly.

This is not to say the harder path may not be the better path. I would not say NEVER take the harder path. Leap on your chance to learn Greek if that appeals to you. But don’t feel compelled to make your life hard.  What for? Life’s not complicated enough?

Ask instead: What’s the ratio of risk to reward? What’s the opportunity cost? Should I go to the beach instead? Hell, ask who put the tribbles in the quadrotriticale if that will slow you down before you leap.

“It’s hard, therefore I should do it” makes sense sometimes. The harder book will often be the better book. The harder path will tone and firm more muscles, and may possibly offer better scenery.  More intensive efforts sometimes yield higher pay-offs.

Making a culture out of “harder,” though, no doubt contributed to the fact that Americans now may have the longest, toughest work week in the civilized world, at least in terms of hours worked. A report Gallup released “showed the average time worked by full-time employees has ticked up to 46.7 hours a week, or nearly a full extra eight-hour day,” according to Jena McGregor in a September 2, 2014 article in the Washington Post. In fairness, I’ll note that some Asian countries appear to have our work hours beat. The numbers are really muddy out here when you start to look at them.

I would like to boldly assert that 46.7 hours is too damn much, though, unless you love your job. If you love that fulfilling job, 60 or more hours may be fine. For the many Americans who are working to eat and pay the mortgage, however, these hours have gotten out of hand as we buy into American versions of the Nepalese proverb.

Embracing tough options may make those options more palatable, and if the Nepalese proverb has been helping readers manage their daily lives, I don’t want to rock functional boats. Still, I do want to leave this post with a question for you:

Would you be better off on the easier path? Instead of reflexively saying, “I will work harder!” maybe you should make a T-Chart with the advantages of the harder path on one side and the disadvantages on the other.

Is it time to walk away from your harder choice? Or at least cut out a few less-fun hours? Maybe go get a mocha milkshake or a hot fudge sundae instead?

Since sitting appears to be becoming the new smoking, I recommend contemplating this issue in a recliner.

“$350 jeans are dead. $100 leggings killed them”!!

That’s what the Washington Post says anyway. I can still find those holey jeans out there, so rumors of their demise may be premature. But the fact that Walmart sells holey jeans cannot be good for those who are ripping denim at the most exalted levels. True Religion will be closing 27 stores soon, for example.

But $100 yoga pants? Are we mental? Ron Weasley might wonder, and with reason. They are yoga pants, not silver earrings. Yoga pants are only one step removed from yesterday’s bygone tights.

What, so we slap a waistband on stretchy pants and call them art?  I do like how Lululemon calls its pants, “the Holy Grail of Yoga Pants.” The Wunder Under Hi-Rise Tight Nulux 28″ runs $128 on Lululemon’s website.  That’s cheap for a Holy Grail, but pretty damn pricey for an item of clothing that clings much too tightly to the average female butt.  I’d try to sell those Nuluxes by calling them Grails, too.

For those who have all those extra hundreds laying around the house, I say wear whatever you like. It’s your money. I never had any fashion sense anyway. According to the Washington Post, all the fashionable women are wearing yoga pants.

But before you hand over your Benjamin Franklins, it might be worth asking how much we should value the Washington Post’s opinion. At the end of the yoga pants article, the Post posed a fascinating question, one which I never, ever would have thought to ask:

“You can now snort chocolate — but should you?”

No, you shouldn’t. It’s that simple. And you should not spend $128 for yoga pants unless your discretionary income is … considerable, at the very least.

Zombie phrase for the day: Yoga pants are very comfortable when you are dead.

Ooohgahhh ahnnndnzz ahhh ehhhwee guhmmmmdabuhhh ehhn ooh ahhh eehhhdd.

Are you Groot? Are you an ent? A would-be time lord? Elrond’s second cousin from Montana?

Who are you? If fantasy plays no role in your life, I confess I don’t understand you at all. In my world, Groots and Rockets make life better. We need Talosians, elves, wizards and flying dragons.  I’d love to be able to say, “Welcome to Earth!”

I am not oblivious to Independence Day scenarios, but at least for now we mostly get the world we invent in our own heads — especially if we sensibly turn off the news.

Life Coaching Tip for today: Turn off the news! Scour Rotten Tomatoes for a film you missed that’s on your must- or should-see list. Download the film. Or buy a DVD if you must. When evening rolls around, get some popcorn, candy or even a gas station slushy and relax while the G-20 go on without you. You can read a political synopsis later if you care enough.

But for today, put on your comfy slippers and slip into a good fantasy or adventure. You are what you eat. That applies to movies and television, as well as Takis and nachos. Is the news giving you indigestion? Marvel superheroes can cure your peptic discomfort.

Captain America makes my whole world better.

Who makes your world better?