Friday, 15 June 2012

baked byDenise Jacobs

If you’ve ever read Alice in Wonderland, you’ll be familiar with the following passage:

“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Two pence a week, and jam every other day.”

Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire ME—and I don’t care for jam.”

“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.

“Well, I don’t want any TO-DAY, at any rate.”

“You couldn’t have it if you DID want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.”

“It MUST come sometimes to ‘jam to-day’,” Alice objected.

“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.”

— from Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll

Let’s say that you, in fact, liked jam, and that’s exactly what you wanted. Some of us (myself a primary culprit) have lived or are living in the world of “jam every other day” with “today not being any OTHER day”. That is to say, we’ve lived or are living with extreme delayed gratification, to the point where there is no gratification at all, or if it is, it is extremely short-lived and difficult to appreciate.

What are you putting off until it’s “the right time”, such as the project (an article or book to write, app to develop; site, program or company to launch), that you really want to do, something new that you really want to learn, a fun new activity that you really want to try, a new exercise habit, a vacation or trip that you really want to take, the person (or people) that you would like to get to know better/spend more time with or become friends with? What piece or pieces of self-care are you pushing off because “you don’t have time”? In my own life, I can see so many times where “jam to-morrow” just didn’t happen—largely due to my own devices. In contrast, during the instances where I did get, achieve, or manifest what I truly desired, I was in-love with life and all of the possibilities that it had to offer.

So, if it’s “jam every other day” for you like it has been for me so often in my life, here is my recommendation based on what I’m currently learning and putting into practice: start looking at where you can make it “jam today” instead. Right now, I am making an effort to set aside small amounts of time to do the hard work (only because I am out of practice) of feeding my soul, and am trusting that it becomes increasingly easier the more I do it. I’ve already seen that when you give to yourself first, you then are able to give more to the world. And isn’t that what we all came here for anyway?

(…and if you’re curious, my favorite jam to date is St. Dalfour Fancy Plum. Yum!)