The Girl Scouts handed the monster a cookie and said “The first one’s on us.” From then on, he was a fiend. He became “Cookie Monster.”
That’s how your endocrine system gets hijacked. When you’re given something so good that all you can think about in the next moment is “I want another one.”
Not “I want twenty more!” Just, one more.
Pringles even market that way. “Once you pop, the fun won’t stop.” And then you’ve gone through a whole can.
Did you know you can become the hijacker?
If a can of Pringles starts with one chip, then your whole yard of work starts with one leaf. Just pick up one leaf and throw it away (or in the neighbor’s yard) and see how you feel. You removed a leaf, but all your brain saw was an accomplishment. Yard – leaf = yard I’ve no longer avoided. Then, go to work or about your day, and if the sun is out tomorrow, tackle the yard, or maybe just two leaves and come back tomorrow.
I’ll be honest with you. It’s not going to feel like a line of coke. It’s pretty boring. But, a pretty smile is thousands of thousands of strokes with a toothbrush. A clean house is a lot of small things put in their place over and over. A life that looks more like our own, personal, intimate ideal is possible and even probable when you’ve decided that’s where you’re going and step up, not to do the big brave things, but the little things that bring you some small sense of pride and progress.
The process can be filled with lots of little hormone hijackings along the way made by you. Instead of the things and companies, and apps that make you go backward.
I have dog toys and cups all over the gawddamn house, and I only put a couple in the sink on my way out.
“Only a couple.”