Paging Dr. Bombay, Dr. Bombay! Emergency, come right away!!
Chandra is not PerfectlyFine! She has diasgnosed herself to be suffering a I’m-nearly-forty-and-realizing-that-not-only-am-I-not-hip-now-but-likely-never-was malaise!
She thinks I may have a cure.
such pressure I am under.
I too have been afflicted with that particular malaise. Although in my case it would be the I’m-over-forty variety. Sometime during 2002 when I was in the grip of the I’m-39-and-realizing-certain-truths strain, I decided that a change of mind was in order.
A friend of a friend shared with me an insightful quote. She was studying to become a yoga instructor and one of her teacher’s mantras was ‘don’t push the river’.
don’t push the river.
In some ways I have so completely embraced this notion that I loom perilously close to complete torpidity. So there is a danger here. Proceed with caution.
However, the underlying tenet is very freeing. We lament what was/is/and most likely/always will be, when we could be reveling in the knowledge. No longer trying to be ‘hip and with it’ will free up enormous amounts of time and energy. As always, we are surrounded with images of what we should be. our faces, bodies, homes – there is a crippling amount of shoulds in our lives. Isn’t it great to be able to reject that??!! to be the rejector rather than the rejectee? It is the ultimate stress reducer, ego booster!
I have given myself permission to not be hip, actually to not ‘be’ anything. My new verb is ‘am’.
Things are much better now that I am.
I am much happier – I am not trying to be happier.
To tell you the God’s honest truth, now that I am, I feel much hipper.
purlingswine 
Brilliant! I read another blogger (name sadly lost in the fog of memory -AtMyKnitsEnd?) who applied a similar philosophy to wanting not things, but issues (for lack of a more apt word) like more time, more organization, etc. Turns out, doesn’t matter what the object is, it’s the verb that gets one into trouble: “want” whatever. I am applying your insight to my own recitals: I “am”. Thank you for such a useful tool.
well. I am not going to be “over” 30 for 2 more weeks, BUT I have *never* been hip.
I have tried not to suffer from that knowledge, and have had really fun great times when I succeeded, and really lame times when I did not. Ultimately, I need to be “hip” to me, not anyone else.
I like that about the river, it will be going into the rotation.
Here is my favorite: Thanks to impermanence, all things are possible. SO, if I am unhip *feeling* right now, I can be pretty sure that I won’t feel that way always (if for no other reason than my ridiculously short attention span).
Now. How can we apply this to the yarn stash?
I HAVE yarn. I do not NEED yarn.
…nope, just doesn’t have a good *ring* to it.
You rock!!! I’m feeling better already. I loved the pig joke last night, and I’m going to start work immediately on not pushing the river.
Thank you, Ann.
Way to live in the moment!
I love this phrase. “Don’t push the river”. When I was a new mom, they said, “Choose your battles”. It made me see I should decide what’s important, not react to every little thing.
You and I are close to the same age. I was in 8th grade during the Bicentennial. Though I didn’t get a colonial name, I did wear a long “granny” dress for Bicentennial events. ::hunting around for pictures::
I spent 6 years in a small, closeminded, insular town where I had no problem feeling hip because I hadn’t lived in the same yucky town my whole boring life. The closest thing they had to a yarn shop was a Ben Franklins.
My favorite phrase I learned as a young adult was that you rarely regret the things you do as much as the things you don’t do. That said, I regret remaining a virgin for so long (back before AIDS)when men my age were hunks. Now the few 50 year old hunks are happily married, gay or dicks. The rest are soft.
This actually does follow through for stashing yarn. If you REALLY want it, get it as it may not be available later.
Hope I am not being too vulgar for you.