Minding your own business. Sticking to your knitting. Remembering, “Did they ask me about this?”. The temptation to manage the monkeys in someone else’s circus can get you in hot water. What about the troop of misbehaving monkeys in your lane? Good question. During Dry February, when I was wet, I was working on staying in my own lane. Minding your own lane can be a metaphor for living.
The magic of lanes is that they free you by constraining you. You know where you’re supposed to be and where you’re not. They let you go at your pace without worrying about what’s going on next door. They protect you but don’t completely obscure the world around you. You can marvel at the the Ferrari in the next lane. You can feel pretty good about being a Ford when you see a Yugo in another lane.
When I suggested Dry February, some people let me know they were game. Using what’s in their pantry before buying more. No more health and beauty buys. No Facebook or Instagram scrolling. I hope the folks who went “dry” felt freed by self-constraint.
It’s not lost on me that my proclivity for thinking I’m right leads me to write. I don’t want to own your monkeys but I usually have lots of suggestions on how to manage them. I know my “ two cents worth” is overpriced. So, “No, you didn’t ask me about this.” But it seems fair to assume that if you’re reading, it’s because you want to. “Influencer”, I’m not. What a silly job description.
I went dry on book buying. I borrowed one from a friend. I dusted off my library card. I read what I had and I wrapped up a a knitting project that had been at loose ends for too long. I did read a few free Kindle samples. It took a lot of restraint to not purchased the one that sold for seventeen cents. What a funny, random price. By the time you’re reading this, Amazon will be seventeen cents richer. The spending moratorium wasn’t mostly about money. It was about measured restraint.
Aside: Where is the “cent” key on my computer? Guess what, you can make one by pressing Option +4. So, tomorrow, Amazon will be 17¢ richer!