How's Your Attitude?

This week, as teachers, and soon children, return to school, our campus is participating in this project wearing these bracelets:

You can read the "instructions" here, but the simple idea is this: Wear the bracelet. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping, or criticizing (I just this minute saw that gossip is included -- I have some work to do!) you move your bracelet to the other wrist. Obviously, the point is to make yourself aware of your behavior so that you can change it. The difficult part is that you are to take your bracelet off after you have gone 21 days without complaining, gossiping, or criticizing. The preacher who started it all confessed that he went through three bracelets before he made his 21 days!!

So, y'all know I am on board with this, since I'm trying to shine like a star in the universe. And let me also confess my pride. The first day I did all right -- I moved my bracelet twice, and once was when I chose to gripe about Heelys and just moved my bracelet as my "payment" for griping! But, pride and the fall, don'tyaknow.

Did I mention that it's the week before school starts? And my class list is 2 over state regulations? And we're out of lamination film until Sept. -- because of that whole clever budget idea, remember? And special ed. has new regulations AGAIN about referring students -- but I do love how our counselor refers to the federal regulations as "The Feds", as if Men In Black will come in and mow down our school should we get a percentage wrong in our referrals. It's been a challenge not to complain. And, I failed at not gossiping or criticizing, but I plead ignorance.

I have cracked up, though, at the lengths people will go to in order to ignore or rationalize their behavior. Which, in all fairness, I don't think this is something you can foist off on people and expect that their hearts are ready to buy into. Sometimes it's all you can do to put one foot in front of the other -- and you need to gripe that you got it done! So I think people should choose if they are ready to change this behavior about themselves -- not their place of employment decide FOR them (it's not a requirement where I work, but it was quite a bit of peer pressure).

So, I think some people are not quite ready for this. The folks who take their bracelet off so that they can gripe freely -- then put it back on -- I'm not sure they're ready! Rumor today was that one lady cut her bracelet into pieces. Not sure she was ready. People are also ready to help you rationalize. When I made a disparaging remark about someone yesterday and said, "I probably need to move my bracelet for that," one sweet soul said, "No, that was simply stating a fact." Okay. So if your griping is fact, it's okay. I have also noticed -- especially this time of year -- that my griping stems from my problem solving thought processes. I see a way this could be done more efficiently, or I don't understand why we do what we do. So I have decided that unless I have the financial resources and/or the time and energy to fix the problem, I better keep my mouth shut.

It's been an interesting experiment. I plan to keep at it. I'm afraid, though, that as I get busy and tired, I will just go 21 days without realizing that I'm griping, gossiping, or criticizing. One of "the rules" of the project is that if you point out to someone else that they need to move their bracelet, then you also must move your bracelet (plank from your own eye and all that). I had to make a new rule for my bracelet today -- if you are not wearing one, you may NOT point out to me when I need to move my bracelet. Especially if you are married to me. It could be bad for your health.