A good friend of mine recently asked me, “What do you think is the most important trait of a successful relationship?”

I answered right away, without thinking (because I all-too-often do talk before thinking), “Honesty.”

Then I paused for a moment and corrected myself: “Showing appreciation for one another.”

I cannot think of any better feeling than knowing I am appreciated.

How many of us are just starving for a little appreciation in our lives? Craving appreciation does not mean that we are self-centered or suffer from low self-esteem.  For me, at least, I function better and I am more motivated when I know that someone actually cares about my actions, however mundane they may be.

It sure is nice to know that somebody gives a damn, isn’t it?

It’s all about showing appreciation.  

It doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy to be a remarkable gesture of appreciation.  For example, RaeLea and I leave little notes for one another as part of our regular routines.  Just short, simple “thinking of you” notes.

It probably takes us ten seconds to scrawl the words, but the positive effect lasts all day.

I really treasure these ordinary displays of appreciation.  I know she does, too.  In fact, I am going to go write a little note for her, right now.

What do you think is the most important trait of a successful relationship?

I’d love to read your response in the comments below.  I appreciate your feedback!

WARNING:  the following story should not be consumed by readers with strong gag reflexes.  As a matter of fact, this story should probably not be read by anybody.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I wish that I could tell you that this little tale is fiction.

I am just going to come right out and say it: the toilets installed in our skid shack at work are terrible.  They are classic failed designs in water conservation and they don’t flush worth a damn.  Usually, I flush two or three times when I use it, so it was not a surprise when I flushed this morning and the bowl refused to empty.  Allowing the prerequisite amount of time for the tank to refill so I could maximize the next attempt, I flushed a second time.

This time, the water rose, and then quickly began to cascade over the brim.

“Dammit!” I declared as my immediate analysis of the situation.

I grabbed for the plunger and submerged it, working the tool as though I was churning butter in a cesspool fountain.  No matter how aggressive I got with it, nothing was going down.

By this point, the bathroom became a shallow pool of filthy, raw sewage.  The off-level plane of the shack’s floor was a saving grace, since the putrid fluid gathered in a corner and did not seek out the bathroom door as escape.  That would have been bad, since it would have meant immersion in the bedroom carpet.

As the disgusting solution gurgled up the shower drain, it dawned on me that the blockage must be farther down the line, and I had a hunch as to its cause.

Trading my Crocs for rubber boots, I grabbed a flashlight and headed out into the predawn wind.  My suspicion was confirmed when I reached the exposed gravity-and-sump pump mechanism on the back side of our skid shack:  this blockage was no accident.

I believe that every job has dignity.  Anyone who is willing to sacrifice a bit of personal comfort to break a sweat en route to building a better life for themselves should be praised for their efforts.  Those who pump our sewer systems have an arguably shitty job (sorry, I could not help myself) but their duties are critical to maintaining a semblance of civilized life.

That said, I cannot help but observe that the operators of these septic pumping trucks are not always the most detail-oriented individuals.  They usually do their jobs well, most days.  Every once in a while though, these stewards of sewage leave little reminders of the power they wield by peeling back the veil between our world as creators of waste and their world as wizard-like removers of this material.

Illuminated by my flashlight, staring back at me was an example of how the septic crew reminds us of their reign from the top of the waste heap: a simple, foam plug inserted into the main sewer line, completely blocking the pipe.

I’m sure they have a valid reason for doing this; it’s not unreasonable to accept that they may not want the open sump pump to kick in while they are emptying the sewer tanks behind our shacks.  It’s not unreasonable, however, to expect that they would remove those plugs after their work was done.  At least a half dozen times in the past four years I have had the joy of sewer backups erupting (sometimes literally, such as today’s incident). All this delight because the septic pump worker forgot to remove the plug they placed in the sewer line before they left location.

The mess this creates can best be described as…epic sensory overload.

Mopping up the bathroom floor with my bath towels and dousing the surfaces with a bleach solution was not the most pleasant way to start the day.  Nothing quite says “Happy Monday!” before breakfast like getting down on hands and knees and wringing filth from the towels that–while of course will be washed thoroughly–I use to dry off after taking showers.  I am just neurotic enough to obsess about that the next time I pat-dry my face.  Lovely.

I have to tell myself that it could always be worse.  I could, for example, be pumping sewer tanks for a living.  I think if I had such a job as that, I probably would have to find creative ways of keeping myself amused. Maybe occasionally “forgetting” that I had blocked up someone’s sewer line would be an entertaining way to pass the time.

I talk to my Future Self almost every single day.  As a matter of fact, I have been talking to my Future Self regularly since early 2011.

It has been less of a conversation and more of a monologue, with my Present Self writing to my Future Self.  You might be doing the same thing, only you probably call it “journaling” or “keeping a diary.”  That is what a journal is, after all:  letters for Future You to read.

Journalizing is important!

It’s my belief that journals should be not just about the events of your day, but rather a deeper analysis of the meaning behind those events and how they fit into the big picture.

When I was a kid, I was so impressed with my father for keeping a journal.  He would pull out the notebook (I seem to recall it was small and bound in red vinyl) and he would recite the goings-on around the farm from the past year or two.  He might have announced, “we branded calves on the same weekend last year.” or “the west alfalfa field yielded 120 bales three Summers ago.”  The sort of record keeping that a pragmatic farmer would find noteworthy.

I was inspired then to keep records of my own life:  books I read, or aspects of my chores I found interesting.  I habitually invented fictional worlds, populated by people who explored islands or formed countries and went to war with one another.  Naturally, records needed to be kept on those “important” events.

Though I found it fascinating and worthwhile to make observations about my world (including and especially the fictional worlds), I rarely maintained those journals for more than a few weeks.  My catbrain would find something more interesting to focus on, and the old “journal” became just another jumble of childhood notebook inscriptions to be ultimately tossed away.

Maintaining a journal is an exercise in discipline.  

It’s so easy to skip a day between journal entries.  Before you know it, a week has passed, and then a month.  That’s the frequency most of my journals consisted of, up until 2011.  So what changed?

Social Accountability.

That’s just a fancy way of saying that I share my journal, specifically with RaeLea.  She shares her journal with me as well.  We have found that knowing someone else will be reading our words means that we are much more likely not to let too many days pass between journal entries.

Even though we are sharing these “inner thoughts” with one another, we have a strict rule:  anything we write in our journals is sacred.  On the rare occasion we write about subject matter which is sensitive to one another, we make a point of being nonjudgmental and noncritical. That is not always easy to do, but we both understand that the alternative is self-censorship.

We use Google Drive to create a new journal document each year, and use the “Share” tool to grant access to one another (the documents are completely invisible and inaccessible to anyone else).  A nice bonus of using Google Drive is that we are able to insert comments in the other person’s journal. These comments appear on the side and can be responded to, kind of like the comments section following this blog article you’re reading.

Since Drive is cloud-based, we can access our journals anywhere, from any computer or smartphone using our personal login.  No more excuses not to write!

Using this method, it’s uncommon for us to go more than a few days without writing in our journals.  For each of the past three years, we exceeded 100,000 words per year, per person.  That’s a lot of journaling!

I maintain several different journals, but these are the three biggest ones:

Personal Journal.  This is my primary journal, where I detail the events of the day, new experiences I had, and what I learned from those experiences.  It’s motivating to read old journal entries and see where my predictions ended up being correct and what happened to make some of those outcomes turn out differently than I expected. This journal has become something of a chart for me in plotting my personal evolution (including recognition of weaknesses I still possess).

Writing Ideas Journal.  If you’re a creative person, you doubtless have fresh, new ideas spring from your mind regularly.  I distrust my memory, and so my Writing Ideas Journal was born. It is an improvement from its origin:  a dedicated notebook I kept by my bedside, where I often would awake from a dream with new story ideas.  Most of the story ideas are not exactly flashes of brilliance, but every once in a while a new gem is unearthed.

When I experience a dearth of story starter ideas, I have this treasure trove of story concepts I can dig into.  Usually that ol’ “writer’s block” gets kicked in the ass pretty quickly after a review of my Writing Ideas Journal.

Just as with my Personal Journal, I didn’t want to lose these insights if a notebook-bound journal was lost, so I transitioned into the digital cloud (Google Drive) as my format of choice.  I adore being able to add new ideas from my phone when I am out for a walk or sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office.

Random Ideas Journal.  For everything else, there’s the Random Ideas Journal. New business ideas, marketing experiments, productivity improvements, and so on, find themselves in this expansive document.

I credit my most recent wage raise at work as being at least partially a result of mining my Random Ideas Journal for nuggets which I found applicable. I shared those ideas with the owner of the company, as per my belief in the principle of abundance.  Fortunately, she found some of those ideas to be worth considering, and by extension the creator of those ideas to be worth keeping around!

How my Future Self benefits from my journal.

Each of us are evolving.  How we view the world now is vastly different from how we viewed the world ten years ago, and how we will observe the world ten years into the future.  That development happens gradually, over a long span of time.

If I was not keeping a journal, I would lose perspective on my rate of personal evolution.  I do get frustrated with myself, specifically my penchant for procrastination and the lack of discipline I exhibit.  When I am grumbling about my slow progress towards my goals in life, I take a moment to open up one of my older journals and begin reading.  It doesn’t take long for me to regain my perspective and to acknowledge that while I will never evolve as quickly as I wished I could, I am making progress towards my goals–even from just a few years ago.

This is a gift that my Present Self is able to give my Future Self.

I have not yet figured out a way to send messages back in time to my younger self.  I think if I could send just one, it might be: “Thank you for the gift. Keep journaling!”

For me, being a writer is an ongoing conflict.  I have thankfully never suffered from a shortage of story concepts, and I have been blessed with something resembling raw talent for crafting plots and characters. Yet, assembling the various components into something fit for public consumption as a final product is where I struggle most.

If I can give my inspiration a name (“my Muse”), then I can personify that which gets in my way of creative success.  I’ll call that adversary “Resistance.”

My Adored Muse

My Muse–to my mind’s eye–is a shy, even impish figure.  She whispers in my ear most often when I am asleep and dreaming vividly, and I must hurriedly awake and write my dream down before I forget it. She shows me glimpses of magical worlds when I am hiking alone in the Badlands, and so I often stop to scrawl notes.  She is always welcome to visit me, but does not always answer my invitation.  It is therefore my Muse’s choice whether she will grace me with her otherworldly ideas.

I have found that I can encourage my Muse to visit by religiously keeping a “Writing Ideas Journal” so that she sees that I am taking her input seriously.  When I fail to take note of those concepts she shares with me, inevitably she becomes shy and chooses to visit someone else for a while.  But we have a decent relationship, my Muse and I, and we have come to an amiable understanding:  that she will keep feeding me with inspiration, so long as I continue to act upon it.

That Fiend, Resistance

It is important to recognize that Resistance is not necessarily the opposing force to my Muse.  The monster which is Resistance does not suddenly go away just because I have an exciting story concept.  Very often, in fact, I will jot down a few paragraphs of a story concept, only to find Resistance stepping out of the shadows, wielding a blade with treacherous talent.

Resistance has many weapons in his arsenal:  writer’s block, self-doubt, procrastination, distractions, laziness.  He knows how to employ each weapon with devastating effect. Resistance tantalizes me with that TV show I just have to watch.  He convinces me that I simply do not have time or am too tired to write when I am done with my work shift.  He instructs me that reading an unholy number of books about writing is in effect just as good as doing the actual writing itself.

Resistance is a liar, but his lies are just so damned sexy.

Resistance whispers to me in a reassuring voice, “Don’t stress about your word count. Why do you set deadlines for yourself?  Relax, enjoy life, have a beer and play a video game.  You already work too hard, just take it easy!”

Most days, I have to admit I give in to to these temptations of laziness and distraction.  I am a sucker for taking the quick and easy path.  The fact that “most people take the easy path” does not give me any long-term solace, no matter how soothingly that monster Resistance sings that song.

Overcoming Resistance

It was in reading Stephen Pressfield’s superlative work of nonfiction, aptly named “The War of Art” that I first heard someone give name to Resistance.   Mr. Pressfield’s experience in battling his own demons both internal and external yielded hard-won lessons, which he generously shares in his book.

Mr. Pressfield defines Resistance as “the negative force which keeps you away from writing. It comes in various forms of an instant-gratification ‘high.’ It’s what keeps us from sitting down and facing a blank page.”

He goes on to point out “That which you fear controls you.  That which you fear and face, you will control.”

In “The War of Art”, he advises that a key principle for him was to treat his writing like a profession–not just a hobby.  “A professional seeks order and discipline,” he says.  “A professional demystifies things and focuses on craft and technique. You will never overcome fear; you just have to face fear and do it anyway.”

An amateur does something for fun.  An amateur is chaotic and impatient.  A professional, on the other hand, treats her work like a job.  It is a vocation, not a hobby.  A professional shows up for work everyday and stays on the job, whether she feels like working or not.

Mr. Pressfield additionally offers an axiom, to think of Resistance as a compass–or a “North Star” as he thinks of it.  In other words, the stronger the Resistance to your activity, the more likely it is something you were meant to do.

If you are a creative professional–or wish to become one–I highly recommend you read “The War of Art”.  At the very least, you will be doing yourself a favor by listening to this excellent hour-long interview with Stephen Pressfield:

I am implementing this mindset in my ongoing quest to evolve my writing from hobby into profession.  I look forward to someday returning to this article and perhaps will recognize it as a victorious battle in my own ongoing “War of Art.”

I remember distinctly the moment I realized that I possessed the power to win the lottery. All I needed to do was purchase a single ticket, and my accumulated quota of luck would be siphoned off in exchange for an immediate financial windfall.

The Powerball was at record numbers (something like $400 Million), and the headlines were tantalizing: just 48 hours until the winning number would be drawn. Everyone, it seemed, was picking up tickets at the local convenience stores, because “you can’t win if you don’t play.”

I know how crazy it sounds, but I tell you this with full sincerity: I know that if I bought a lottery ticket, I would win the lottery.  But I would win by abusing my good luck for materialistic gains.

Between chapters

At the point in time of the aforementioned jackpot, I was going through something of a transition between chapters in my life. I had reluctantly left the comfortable (but stressful) home-based business I built up over the course of eleven years, and pursued the much less civilized, unpredictable lifestyle of a contractor in the oilfield. My marriage of ten years ended just a few months after that, and I was left with debt exceeding six figures.

Yet, I flourished during that transition period.  The challenges of the new career and the volatile, unpredictable lifestyle forced me to step up my game.

• I am lucky: I found a talent for the work I was tasked to do with minimal input or oversight, and I was consequently promoted rapidly.  I was lucky, too, in that I found real enjoyment in the work that I did.
• I am lucky:  I have a wonderful relationship with my family, and I have a circle of treasured friends.
• I am lucky:  I have had countless close-calls and near-misses working on an active drilling rig, and on the high-traffic roads of the oil patch. I remain unscathed and healthy.
• I am lucky:  I never believed in the concept of “falling in love” but after my divorce was finalized, I met an amazing coworker who shared my work ethic and life values, and who I indeed fell in love with.

A simple self-assessment tells me that I am already a lottery winner, just by blind virtue of when and where I was born.

My prettier half’s stance

When I discuss this with my RaeLea, she usually responds with a hint of incredulity. I cannot blame her for doing so!  After all, what manner of creature would make such a bold claim of prescience–and then pass it up?

“Who’s to say your luck would be exhausted if you won?”  She asks.

“It’s a hunch.  I don’t know, it just makes sense to me that when we earn karma, it should not be spent in such a way.”

“I am willing to take that chance,” she sometimes tells me.

I half jest: “That is why I am the one who is tasked with managing the luck in this relationship!”

It’s not as though I don’t appreciate money; I am an unapologetic capitalist, after all.  It’s also not that I didn’t believe that I could put such a windfall to good use, either.  I like to think that I would be sensible with my investments and that I would not allow my new fortune to become a misfortune.  But then again, isn’t that what every lottery winner believes?

Regardless, I will never confirm this admittedly wild thesis I have; I will never prove that this mystical belief I have shared with you today is actually real or simply the machinations of my overactive imagination.  To confirm this would mean purchasing a lottery ticket and I have too much to lose and comparatively little to gain by doing that.

I won’t squander my karma, and I won’t deplete my good luck because I would miss it when it is gone.

What about you?  If you believed that you would win a $400 Million dollar lottery, but that in so doing your karma might be damaged, would you purchase a lottery ticket anyway?