I have friends who tend to relate every circumstance of life to a Seinfeld episode. Since I've never been an avid fan, these references are usually lost on me...except a few of the more "famous" ones.
My daily reference point is slightly less...um..."adult", shall we say? In fact, it's rather juvenile. I often correlate my circumstances to Children's Books! This morning was no exception.
I love the way I feel after I walk/run, but am having a hard time pushing myself to do it on some of these really cold days. I keep searching for that rather elusive character trait known as "will power" but it seems to have quite abandoned me. But never fear! Frog & Toad taught me exactly what to do when I lack will power! That is: find new ways to motivate...or rather FORCE...myself to get it done!
In Arnold Lobel's funny, endearing and wise story, "Cookies", Frog and Toad can't stop eating the delicious cookies they made because they don't have enough will power. "Will power is trying hard not to do (or in my case...TO do) something that you really want to do," says Frog. So they keep devising more and more extreme circumstances to make the cookies harder to get at. In the end, they scatter them on the ground and the birds snatch them all away. Toad laments, "Now we have no more cookies to eat. Not even one." "Yes," said Frog, "but we have lots and lots of will power."
Following their example, my most recent strategy was to have my 16-year-old drive my car to his morning carpool and leave it there. In order for me to go anywhere (and I HAVE to today), I had to hoof it 3 miles to pick up my car! Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures...and I consider a wind chill of 9 degrees, a desperate time!
It worked! I successfully retrieved my car and now I can join Frog and Toad in declaring that I too "have lots and lots of will power!"
4 comments:
may i be the first to say that i am very very impressed? i am. first and impressed. well done, lori! and may i also say that you are quite welcome to drive way way out here and run on my treadmill INDOORS any time you wish :) i can barely stand my thirty minute recess duty outside in this weather-and we cancel it at 20 degrees! but then again, i'm a southern weather wimp. still, nine degrees, breathing in that icy windy air? well done!
Well, thank you very much for being impressed, Abby. I'm not. But I'm slightly less DEpressed than if I hadn't walked!
You can't even compare recess duty where you have to stand still! My first 15 minutes are the most miserable and I'm moving...FAST! After that, I'm fine...I was sweating like crazy by the time I got back home! (TMI?)
Btw, I haven't forgotten about your salad requests...just haven't followed through yet.
I can identify with Frog and Toad more than Seinfeld or whatever movie that is quoted. Maybe I should get out my book and read about will power. I am very proud of you for persevering. Well done!Joanie
You rock, seriously.
I love it how, when Frog gleefully tells Toad that they have lots and lots of will power that Toad tells Frog that he can keep it all. Then he (Toad) goes home to bake a cake.
I just love those stories. We had them on tape and listened to them so much that I think that they might be burned into my brain. But that's a good thing.
One of my favorites is with Toad and his bathing suit.
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