How Am I Doing?

The Barry Manilow chorus, “looks like we made it” keeps ringing in my head here on January 2, 2023.  If you’re reading this you’re alive, you have internet, probably also  some kind of shelter from the elements, and secure food.  I have all those things too.

So on the hierarchy of needs spectrum or whatever my survival needs are 100% met today.  I’m totally winning the survival game.

How cool would it be if that were enough to feel safe, secure, accomplished, fulfilled?  What if secure food and housing for this day provided me with the sense that everything else is gravy, is optional?  Read a book, walk the dog, drink a latte, plant a garden, whatever — no bad choices.

And yet, I’ve ramped up my needs - my material needs - wayyyy beyond that.  Now, in my defense, compared to some folks I’m like an Amish minimalist. BUT compared to where I’d like my saving vs. spending to be, I’m more like … not that.

My friend Jule said, “it’s so simple, just look at your inflows and your outflows.”

I said, “I’d like to pay someone to do that for me.”

She said, “You can do it.”

I said, “I have to go, Brownie just outflowed and I’m gonna pick it up.”

I do not believe in New Year’s resolutions.  I swore I would not think about being richer or thinner or more accomplished or firmer or more decluttered or less anything.

But the pull to assess and reassess is strong. So how am I doing? I am not homeless, though I’ve been scared of that for decades. I am not so obese as to be bedridden, though again fear of that persists. I am healthy, sober, of service to others, and while we’re not really saving as much as I’d like to, we’re not going into debt either.

So inflow gratitude, outflow love, I’m gonna keep going.