A friend in recovery once told me that the act of making your bed every morning helps to set you up for the rest of your day.
He said that making your bed is an indication that you have some small aspect of your life under control which can help give you the motivation to keep going throughout the day. I agree entirely, and there’s nothing better than getting into a nice warm made up bed with a good book at the end of a long day.
I am three years sober this fall and I still sometimes find it hard to participate in the daily grind of life in general without getting grumpy about it. What fun can there be found in doing chores and errands? Not much, but it is important to find patience when having to do mundane tasks especially for those in sobriety for it can be difficult, aggravating and triggering having to navigate the world.
Waiting in lines at the grocery store or sitting in traffic at a red light for what seems like forever can cause me to get irritable quickly. I like to get where I’m going fast. I like grocery shopping but I don’t like having to carry my heavy grocery bags into the house, fumble with my keys in the cold wet rain and put everything away but I do it because it has to be done. I don’t like doing the dishes, making my bed, shoveling, or picking up dog poop but these are everyday things that we must do.
These “things” take up the majority of our day, so I try not to let them get to me but I often feel like the things I’m most weak at, such as patience, represent themselves to me in the form of a test to see if I can pass without losing my temper. With that in mind, I try to find satisfaction in less than perfect situations.
Like this past Monday, I was stuck in traffic and knew I was going be late for class and have to walk in while the teacher was talking in front of everyone. Instead of honking the horn at the person in front of me who was on their phone and didn’t see that the light was green, I turned up the radio and sang to Whitney Houston’s “I want to dance with somebody” and danced my way into that classroom without caring who saw me, just kidding I did not dance but I do miss dancing in the club.
One of the downsides of being sober is not being able to dance like know one is watching for fear of embarrassment. Anyhow, this fall I am taking elective courses in international law and comparative constitutional law and am really loving what I’m learning.
I find that international law is closely related to Indigenous legal orders in that international law is about peace and unity, it’s about respecting other nations. I find comparative constitutional law equally as intriguing however I do have to work in teams in that class which is not my forte as I prefer to be a lone wolf, but I joined the pack and did the portion of my work that was assigned to me.
However, I was so busy with my chores and errands that I really didn’t have time to meet my teammates’ requirements of what my submission should look like and they were not very pleased with me. Needless to say, we had a bit of conflict about my contribution and one of the team members decided they no longer wanted to work with me.
This is an issue for many reasons. One of which is that we are in law school about to be lawyers. Our job is often to do business in high conflict situations. Lawyer or not, when we quit at the slightest occasion of conflict what does that say about ourselves? Conflict is necessary in life, but it’s how we react to it and address it is what matters most.
Asserting yourself is important. I set my boundaries within the team early on so that I would not be taken advantage of and so that the team would know what type of personality and working style I have. Teams are diverse and with diversity comes different perspectives which may lead to conflict. Too many people these days are overly polite and phony and would rather talk about someone behind their back then confront them assertively to their face.
It’s a shame the person on the team could not continue to work with me because I stood up for myself but that is not my problem its theirs. I no longer shy away from conflict when the need for defending my integrity arises. Yet, walking a fine line of being both respectful and assertive, is difficult to do. It’s something I still sometimes forget to do in heated situations, but no one is perfect.
Yet had I not exercised my assertive skills I would not have learned how to stick up for myself throughout the years and thus would not be where I am today.
I am not afraid of what people might think of me at this point in my life. As long as I am kind to the people I encounter throughout the day and make my bed every morning than I feel like I’m a good team player in this unpredictable game of life.