The Right...

Oh sweet serenity...I opened my email yesterday morning to find the Barnes & Noble Best of 2012 list. Even though I am completely lacking in any sort of Type A personality trait, I have a deep love for lists. "Best of" lists are just pure bliss. In addition to providing what seems to be endless choices for reading, in this case, the lists themselves signal that I have survived another holiday season. It's time for New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day & SUMMER! That's also a list I can appreciate.

I attribute conquering Christmas this year to rekindling my love of & actually READING. Books, articles, series, novels, non-fiction....OH! More lists! I see my love of best-of lists as the anecdote to my procrastination. I never seem to start or continue things because I don't have the "right" something. I may not blog because I don't have the right photo to go along with it (note lack of photo today...I'm going for it anyway), I don't write because I haven't decided on the right topic, I don't run or work-out because I don't have the right outfit or the right sneakers (or, really, anything matching & clean) which then brings me to not having everything put away in the right place or the house decorated in the right way. The best-of list sets up the right stuff for me & I can just START.

Once I start, everything kind of falls into a better place. Something is better than nothing. The next trick that came up this year is then, balancing something with "More is even better". Because soon I am right where I was before, stuck NOT doing because I don't know where to start the more. So my something this year was reading again & letting everyone know what I was reading & allowing myself to follow the motivation provided by the books I read. Seabiscuit was a motivator to continue to be loyal to all of the crazy-ass dreams I have & realize that achieving them takes time. (Grieving parents in that book...we're everywhere). Happiness Project made me just go for it when it comes to blogging & writing. I need to re-read this one because I am faltering in the land of perfection again. It doesn't have to be perfect. Something is better than nothing. I'm starting to re-organize the "More is better".

The last of my top 3 books read this year is Now You See It. Wow! I read the first few chapters & started taking notes. I was telling everyone about the book & my thoughts on its content. But then, I got STUCK. I couldn't blog because I wanted to blog about work & I am just not comfortable doing that. I love & need my gainful employment. I need not rock the boat...but I REALLY need to rock the boat. Perhaps I am just not ready to rock it through blog. Oooohhhhh Nnnooooo - I'm getting stuck...So instead, I forwarded to book to our building principal as a reading recommendation. And BOY did I take notes. My notes were mostly notes to myself about what I wanted to write about, what I wanted to change in the classroom (started implementing that right away, no hesitation in doing more for our students, I can just jump into that - hmmm, I ponder) & the best notes were little ones to the author. For example - "OMG. I love you! Exactly! Thank YOU! Finally!".

So here I am, enjoying the Best Of lists that are filling my news feed & email inbox. I'm hoping that these lists & the reading that I continue to pursue, will allow me to make some more strides in achieving my long list of goals this coming year. I am proud to report that I definitely did something this past year. I want to do more. Scratch that. I want to START more. That's where I'm stuck. So here's to 2013...a year where something is better than nothing & more is just enough.