The books were fun, and I could get a lot out of them because I always doubled back to see what would have happened if I had chosen differently.  I liked the feeling of being in control of the characters’ decisions (I was one of those kids who would talk to TV characters about their bad decisions), and I liked seeing the options in front of me.

Today, I was at the supermarket checkout, idly considering where I would put the groceries, and being glad that I had cleaned out the fridge and cupboards this morning.  I let my thoughts stray* to how tidy my house is at the moment, a fairly unusual circumstance.  My next thought struck me hard  – it went like this…

‘I’ve been doing a good job keeping ahead of the mess for the last few days but I guess it is just a matter of time before it catches up to me again.’

Crappy, hey?  Seriously, why on earth would I say that to myself?  It’s totally self-defeating and it makes everything sucky.

How about if, instead, I decide to choose my own adventure**?

So, here I go:

I’m choosing not to just accept that my family is so messy that untidiness is inevitable, instead I am going to work toward my new adventure***, an orderly house.

Now, before you think I’ve lost it entirely and that I think I can change my mind and things will automatically put themselves away – I’m not crazy (or at least this is not evidence of it – ha!).  I know there is work to be done, but changing my approach to the problem gives me a little list of questions at the end of my page, and now I can choose which adventure to follow to a solution (and double back if I don’t like the outcome).

I think my solutions lie in the following questions

1) If Christine uses her recent schedule to figure out what is helping her keep things tidy, go to page…

2) If Christine tries to figure out where things got off track in the past (that resulted in a big cummulative mess) and figures out some work-arounds, go to page…

3) If Christine figures out the things that have worked for a short time in the past and refines them before trying them again,  go to page…

4) If Christine figures out how some ways to engage her kids in the process, go to page…

5) If Christine takes a good look at her storage and organizational systems and finds ways to make it easier to put things away, go to page…

See? Changing my thought patterns generates solutions, instead of generating the brick wall of ‘I guess it is just a matter of time…’

So, how about your adventures?

How are you choosing a different chapter at the moment?

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*Clearly not a mindfulness moment – oh well!  Can’t be on duty all the time.

**And there’s the connection with the first section, you were wondering when that was coming, weren’t you?

***Admittedly, this is a dull use of the word adventure.  Let’s consider a tidy house an adventure foundation.  The less stuff I have to do to manage the house, the more time I have to have fun.