Excerpts from My Upcoming Self-Help Book

I used to have a card, I think it was a birthday card someone gave me, that said, “Everything I need to know I learned from my dog.” Maybe you know the one. “Smell everything that interests you.” “Eat and sleep and play all the time.” “Look for cuddles.” I don’t remember if it said, “Lick your own butt” too. Anyway, it was cute. Here’s my version: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from my Toddler.

Lesson one: If you say “I WANT” something enough, maybe you’ll get it. So keep trying.
Lesson two: If “I WANT” doesn’t work, try rephrasing the question. Try, “I would like,” or even, “Would you like?” as variations on “I WANT.” The phrasing is not as important as the repetition.
Lesson three: Get up early and go to bed late. That way you will have more hours in the day to try and get the thing you want.
Lesson four: If you love something, think about it all the time. Talk about it all the time. Make it so much a part of your world that you are inseparable from it and it from you. You are one.
Lesson five: Fear nothing until it has actually hurt you.

I have been watching Trombone lately and reframing his irritating behavior, see above, so that it is positive. That way I want to run away less. (Of course, it is positive and perfectly normal, it is helping him learn, it’s just that right now, sometimes, I am finding it irritating.) Anyway, I have decided that if I were to follow his example, in a less strident way, I might also get the ice cream sandwich. As it were.

You see, he most often applies his tenacious toddler technique (except for lesson five) to treats – ice cream sandwiches of late – but I could apply them to things less tangible. Fulfilling career. A little chunk of the day to write in. That’s all I can think of right now. As follows, for example:

Lesson one: I WANT 15 minutes a day to write. I WANT 15 minutes a day to WRITE. I want FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY to write.
Lesson two: I would like 15 minutes a day to write. Would YOU like 15 minutes a day to write? Would you like to do this? I would. Me. I WANT IT.
Lesson three is taken care of. In spades.
Lesson four: working on it, with my spare 17 brain cells.
Lesson five: constant work in progress.

As my laptop has bitten the big, green wiener (thank you, SA’s family, for this eloquent expression) and won’t boot right now, I am going to practise this focus. If a two-year-old can do it, I can, right? Without my constant computer companion to dull (and sometimes stimulate) my brain, I will attempt to carve out that 15 minutes. A day. To write. That I would like. To write in. Just 15 minutes. Me. Me want! Please give me my 15 minutes! Please, would you?

See? Annoying isn’t it. But it will help me grow. Or go off the deep end once and for all. Stay tuned.