A Tweak to the ‘All or Nothing’ Approach

As I painstakingly tease the butternut squash seeds from the slippery bright orange fiber so that I can toast them in the oven, I feel gratitude.

Gratitude for the food certainly, for the crunchy, salty treat we will soon enjoy. But I also feel thankful for a lesson I figured out all on my own that turned out to have numerous applications.

It was a few squashes ago, on a dark night at the end of a pressing, busy day. We were hungry. Dinner was coming together later than we like. Acorn squash was on the menu. I scooped out his brains and put them aside, oiled him up and sprinkled him with kosher salt. After the lovely orange flesh was safely in the oven, I turned and contemplated the seeds.

A flurry of thoughts and emotions flew through me.

I don’t want to pick seeds tonight.

But we toast the seeds. We’re seed toasters. We don’t waste food.

But it’s late and I’m tired and hungry and I want to sit down.

Well then, you’re a lousy wife, depriving Handsome Supportive husband of a delicious, nutritious appetizer.

But it takes so long and I don’t feel like it.

You are a resource squanderer.

Fine.

I began separating the seeds to toast.

Previously I would have secured every last seed. That was how I framed success in this particular task. All the seeds.

“What if I don’t get all the seeds?” I thought. “What if I toast some.”

I considered the last clump of goo in my right hand and I tossed it into the compost bucket. The relief I felt was all out of proportion. I was nice to me! And I liked it!

We enjoyed some toasted seeds while dinner cooked, and our compost got richer. That’s a win/win.

See what I did there? I changed my all or nothing thinking. So drastic. So rigid. And I gave it a self-care twist. The fiber is important, but so is having a little mercy on myself. Doing all of it was going to make me cranky. Doing some of it felt just fine.

A few days later…it was upper body strength training day. It had to be. I tell myself I do twice-weekly strength training and in order for that to be true, it had to happen that evening. An all or nothing approach would leave me feeling like a wiggly-arm failure if I skipped.

“How about just doing bicep curls and shoulder lifts tonight?” I asked myself.

Wow! I felt happy! I didn’t do it all. I didn’t do…none. I did some.

Much of the pressure we feel is self-imposed isn’t it? Truly, there are portions of each of our lives that require exacting behavior. By all means if you are a motorist motoring, a surgeon in surgery or a pilot in flight…do it in an all or none fashion. But otherwise, toss a little self-care into the mix.