Within Your Limits
Within Your Limits Dec 2018
Within your limits’ doesn’t always apply to spending or gambling.
What about over-talking? Not letting your listeners get a word in edge wise. Gossiping. Or overeating. It’s the turkey we are to stuff. Or happy hour. Turning it into a blurr fest. And yes of course, overspending. Waking up Boxing Day to 24% interest rate which my head always convinced my heart would be worth it.
It’s the feel-good I was after. Eventually, I got it that my emotions are here to help me not lead me. Like a well-run engine with all its parts in check so the whole system can function better. Not like a hybrid vehicle running on one or the other. A car can’t run on just the cooling system, or even on the lion’s share of the cooling system.
One Christmas I decided to live within my means, ‘just to see what would happen’. How I’d feel and it was odd not to be part of the retail Olympics. I thought I needed to go shopping to ‘get in the spirit’ but little did I know how it led me straight into the wrong spirit – indecision, anxiety, haste, envy, pride.
Surprisingly I found joy from NOT doing the things I usually did. I had a deep knowing of doing right; it mentally released me to fully engage in all the other activities. I was present in each conversation and every endeavor, free from the burdens I usually piled on myself.
Yes, I gave cards (words – I’ve always liked words and thought they were the best gift of all) and also small tokens. But I can honestly say, I ‘enjoyed’ ALL the holidays before, during and after — without the exhaustion, craving, pressure. And that January, I actually looked forward to the mail and any stray greetings, even the credit card statement.
But like all good things I like to push the envelope. If one is good, two are better. The next years I sharpened my Scrooge persona, consuming myself with ‘staying within the limits’ theme which meant once again meant self-occupation, contrary to the theme of the season. Where was that ‘deep knowing?’ My, how far the pendulum swings.
But each year I tried again. One year I made door stops, masking off zig-zags and dots on scrap triangles of wood. I stained them and attached a tag with each calling them an ‘Aztec Door Stop to open up the door of your soul to the light in’. Some got it, some didn’t but each Christmas I handmade tokens of some kind and tried to spend wisely.
Fast forward thirty plus years and I’m still here doing it and I believe I’m starting to get it. Genuine demonstrations of love that may or may not come from Canadian Tire flyer and fit in a hearse. Gifts not advertised in a catalogue are just as valuable and we all have to give: our time. our attention. our patience. our peace. And it all starts with self-control. I’m giving you some self-control this year. Hmmm…
Now I wonder what isle that would be in at Wallmart?