Why I’m Pursuing Stability over Happiness

The day has finally arrived, y’all.  I’m starting my Stableness Project & documenting the whole shebang over at my new-fangled Stableness Project blog.  I won’t be regularly pulling over those posts to GraceBiskie.com except for this one time though I may add a few links every now & then in my semi-weekly, For You, Netizen posts.  Below is what I wrote last night on why I’m pursuing stability over happiness and the beginnings of my stability journey.

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With my 7 yr. old starting his first day of 2nd grade tomorrow, so I start my Stableness Project.  I confess.  I wanted to start today planned.  I wanted to have a flashy site all rearin’ to go.  I wanted more pinnable images. More readiness! More spreadsheets!

I read something today. Start where you are.  Where ever you are is a perfect time to start.  Tomorrow morning is a perfect time to start.

It’s time.

I decided I’d spend the month of September doing a few things simultaneously.

1.  Laying the plans for a THIRTEEN month Stableness Project including a plan month.  Who says it must be 12 months?  There are no official rules after all.  That way, YOU can join me!

2.  I’m starting September with a few minor resolutions to get me started. More on these in a moment.

I want to start by explaining why I need a Stability Project as opposed to a Happiness Project.

While I was very inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project, page-after-painful-page was another reminder of not only how different we are, but how much our Project’s are starting in drastically different places.

Gretchen starts by explaining how she started her Project: a great marriage with a husband she adored, a successful transition from corporate law to a writing career, a profound sense of enjoyment and accomplishment in those things + living in her favorite city in the world mere blocks from both her parents & in-laws and healthy, happy & financially provided for.  She began her journey wanting to appreciate all that she had & to lighten up as an anal workaholic.  The gist.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt I’d need to re-frame even the language of the project before I could begin.  What the sam smack do I look like trying to pursue happiness while my life is unstable mess?  The last 4 years of have been a circus of gargantuan proportions including but not limited to a crumbling marriage, a 2nd child, postpartum depression, a mid-life crisis, an identity crisis, major debt, leaving a promising career, paying off said debt, trying to revive said marriage, losing a job, joblessness, barely scraping by financially not to mention living in a too-small, too cluttered, too-overwhelmed-to-clean-it house in a city I haven’t necessarily want to live in.  Those are the low lights.

I’m longing NO begging for stability in my life.  I don’t need to be Martha Stewart but it would be nice not to have a perpetually messy, disgustingly smelly home.  I don’t need to be in a “happy marriage” but it would be nice to not to live in what feels like a never-ending marital nightmare.  It’s not always doom & gloom, but rife with complexities.  I don’t need to be wealthy but I’d love to learn to care for our money in such a way that in 5, 10 yrs. -maybe sooner- I can feel proud and enjoy the fruits of our labor to steward it well.  I never want to win a Mother of The Year Award but I want to have a vision of the kind of Mother I hope my two precious boys will remember.  I don’t need to have Miranda Kerr’s body but I would find myself irresponsible if I didn’t learn to be healthy and disciplined in care of the body I do have.

You get the point.  Aspects of my life are SCREAMING for my care.  I’ve been in heavy survival mode for so many years it’s stunted a correct perception of what I can and cannot control.

For instance, at the beginning of 2012 I decided to lose 50 pounds.  I’d spent most of 2011, on the road traveling for work slurping down large frozen carmel coffees followed by McDonalds-ish lunches & dinners.

Eventually, I forked out the monthly $18.95 for Weight Watchers, started a mix of running / Jillian Michael’s CD’s / Nike Training App / biking & dancing and slowly took of 37.5 pounds throughout the year.  I never hit my goal of 50 but I realized I was strong and healthy and fabulous.

It hit me.  Here was something I could control.  Maybe there were more things I could make more stable with a modicum of effort?

Here was something I chose to do for myself that made life more stable and therefore more happy.  From there, I started doing other things to make my life more stable.  When I got a higher paying job I paid down debt $1,000 at a time for a solid 11 months straight.  That felt amazing.  I started room-by-room getting rid of baby stuff and decluttering as best I could.  The freed up space felt incredible though if you walked into my house today you’d still be unsure.  We’ve been in our current home for 10 yrs. now.  Stuff went in but Stuff never came back out.  Ever. Until last year.

I hope and pray my Stableness Project will begin a year of me taking specific, planned & noticeable responsibility in ways I haven’t been ready before.  I can’t wait until I feel completely ready or until I have “enough time”.  The time is now for me to start where I am.  I am here.  I am starting here.  A {mostly} heartbroken woman trying like hell to put my life back together in a way that will personally benefit myself, my children & others for many years to come.

So.  Tomorrow morning I’m starting with 4 basic resolutions for the month of September:

1. Get up every day at the same time, 6:30am, including weekends.  Check this out:

Why does it matter to wake up at the same time every day? Think of your wake time as the anchor to your day. Our bodies follow a circadian rhythm and this relies on consistency. There are many things that you do at about the same time every day, not the least of which is sleep. Anchoring your wake time in place is a cue (or zeitgeber) to your body about when you should be awake and when you should be asleep. Waking at the same time every day will actually help you to sleep better at night. This is especially important for people who have difficult falling or staying asleep, characteristic of insomnia. -Taken from this article.

2.  Be in bed by 10pm.

3. Have a time of prayer & Bible study a.k.a. “quiet time,” every morning, or most.

4. Plan the rest of my Stableness Project!

I would love it if you joined me.  Hop on over to your local library to pick up your copy of The Happiness Project or Happier at Home, check out Gretchen’s blog or get started planning your own!

Like I said, it’s time.

Speaking of time.  It’s 11:30pm.  Oops.  Off I go.

To stability & beyond!

:::: Grace