Day 330: What I am doing differently

Yesterday’s post was about “Doing Things Differently.”

I figured I would make today’s post more specific, about particular things I’m doing differently.

They all share this in common:

I’m judging less. Which is nice, especially considering the friggin’ title of this blog.

Here’s an (off-topic)* thought: If I keep blogging next year (which I probably will), I will perhaps change the title of the blog to this:

The Year of Living Less Judgmentally

Why?

1. That is a more accurate title, since I — a human being — do not really expect to attain that Heaven of Non-Judgment, and
2. There’s no annoying**  hyphen in the title.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes, ways I am judging less, these days:

I am judging myself less, for my fear and anxiety about the on-coming cold.

Rather than saying to myself, “What is the matter with you?  Why are you so anxious about THAT?” I am telling myself, “That makes sense.”

How does it make sense?

Perhaps my cold-related anxiety relates to my spending a lot of time as a kid in the hospital, where the temperature was really cold  in certain rooms, and where I didn’t have any control over that.

And/or, my cold-related anxiety relates to any human being’s primal fear of freezing to death.

It feels good to judge myself less, for these things.

I am judging myself less for lots of other things that are commonly judged, but which I cannot control.  

That is, I am judging myself less for:

1. Growing older.
2. Having more physical ailments, as I do #1, above.
3. Forgetting things every once in a while, as I do #1, above.
4. Becoming less conventionally good-looking, as I do #1, above.

It feels good to judge myself less, for these things.

Okay!  Time for an image, to close this post.

Hold on while I check my iPhone for a relevant (enough) photo.

My expectation, right now, is that I might not find a good enough iPhone photo, this morning.

Why is that my expectation?

Because it’s been so friggin’ cold around here, that I’m taking fewer photos.***

No need to fear, though.

Here’s a photo I took yesterday,  of the boots I was wearing at work:

Notice anything?

Maybe not. The angle I used for that photo sucks****, because it doesn’t highlight the surprise.

Here’s a photo, I just took, that DOES highlight that:

I wore two different boots to work yesterday.

Which is particularly funny, since this was one of the images in yesterday’s blog post:

I chose to point out this mistake to some people at work yesterday.

I chose the right people. How do I know? Here were the responses:

“I’ve done that!”

“Nobody will notice, and if they do, who cares?”

“That’s adorable!”

And, I am happy to report that I did not judge myself for leaving the house with mis-matched boots.

Or more accurately, I judged myself less.

And it felt great!

Thanks to everybody who has ever worn two different types of footwear to work (or anywhere else), judgers of all kinds, and to you — of course! — for reading today.

____________________________

* One thing I say to people in individual and group therapy, who express concern about going off-topic, “There is no such thing as off-topic.”

** I use the word annoying because (1)  I’m human and  (2) looking for hyphens (or any punctuation marks) these days IS more annoying, because they are in different places on different devices.

*** Pardon me for being selfish, but these days, when I’m outside, I would prefer to keep my friggin’ hands in my friggin’ pockets , rather than take photos for my readers.

**** Sometimes it’s fun to be judgmental.