A Box of Stars

There are a lot of tricks that we use to help ourselves remember to do or not do things. Someone in my office occasionally uses a printer across the office, and has a hard time remembering to turn it off at the end of the day. He had the idea of putting his jacket next to the printer when he turns it on so that when he leaves for the day, he has to retrieve the jacket, and thus, turn the printer off. My last task of the day is to turn off the coffeemaker. After leaving several times without doing it and having to return, now when I turn off the coffeemaker I also turn off the lights in the room where it's located. I then have an additional visual cue that I've performed the task.

In her book Inner Simplicity, Elaine St. James suggests a calendar and a box of gold adhesive stars as a means of breaking a bad habit. Every day that you get through without succumbing to the habit you are trying to break, you get a gold star. Once you have completed an entire month with a star in every day, your habit will be broken.

I think that sometimes we deserve a gold star just for getting through the day, or the night. When we gather up our courage and make a difficult phone call, or write a letter of condolence, or complete an assignment at work, wouldn't it be great if there was someone who would put a gold star on our day? When we were children, our teachers and parents rewarded us for completing tasks that, to us, seemed daunting. I think that sometimes we still need to be nurtured in that way.

One of the things I'm still working on is giving myself permission to be imperfect. When I make a mistake, I'm always very hard on myself, even if it's something of little or no importance to anyone else. I need to learn that if I have given something my best effort, whether I succeed or not, the effort has made me successful. I also find it very difficult to ask other people for anything--for a favor, for permission, for recognition or acceptance. That's another thing I'm still working on--to realize that I can't always do everything myself.

In George Saunders' story Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz, the narrator has sold his memories for the money to care for someone for whom he has accepted responsibility. His mind a blank, he wakes up to read the note he wrote to himself before he connected himself up to the machinery:

Then I'm a paunchy guy in a room, with a note pinned to his sleeve:

"You were alone in the world," it says, "and did a kindness for someone in need. Good for you. Now post this module, and follow this map to the home of Mrs. Ken Schwartz. Care for her with some big money that will come in the mail. Find someone to love. Your heart has never been broken. You've never done anything unforgivable or hurt anyone beyond reparation. Everyone you've ever loved you've treated like gold."
~ George Saunders, "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline"

It's important for us to acknowledge our own accomplishments and those of others. Every time you give someone else a figurative gold star, give one to yourself as well.