Parenting Note #710 – Your Bed Is Making You Miserable

Good news – I bought new pens.

Bad news – I tried to guess today’s date, and the guess was WAY off.

Quarantine is causing the days to lose their feel.

A person could tell me today is Monday or Friday, and I’d believe either. (I’m writing this on a Thursday.)

Back when the world was operating normally, no one would ever mistake a Monday for a Friday.

Now, Tuesday feels like Sunday, and I’m positive the world skipped over Wednesday this week.

There’s nothing better than writing with a new pen.

The dark ink. No bite marks on the cap yet. The tip is still fine.

The question now becomes, “where do I hide these from the 6-year-old?”

She’s a pen and marker klepto.

I buy distraction pens and markers to pull her attention away from my new writing utensils.

This is parenting – hiding the good shit from kids.

Here’s a random but important piece of advice for the coming weeks, months or however long this self-containment experiment lasts.

Get out of bed in the morning. The longer a person lays around, the worse the feelings get.

Lying in bed in the morning is the time humans do most of their worrying, second only to the moments before falling asleep at night.

Think about this morning.

Did you wake up and immediately focus on all the crap you have to, and don’t have to, do today?

Did your mood sour? Chest get tight? Did the stomach churn?

You set yourself up for a crap day before your feet hit the floor.

This video does a solid job of explaining why humans do this and how to break the habit.

Ok, so this morning is already in the shitter.

Focus on tomorrow.

Set an alarm. Put the clock across the room so your ass has to get up and turn it off.

Read, journal, focus on positive thoughts, maybe go running, and ignore the news and emails and texts for at least an hour.

Live in the day for a while.

Maybe buy some new pens.

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