The Question Mark

Learn something every day

In the cool of the morning, I found a Question Mark. At first I thought it might be newly emerged and drying it’s wings before taking to the sky, but then realized it was simply warming up for the day. I offered a warm perch, and enjoyed the beauty up close for a moment.

As a naturalist, I’m always looking at things, looking for new and interesting creatures, plants, what-have-you. When I have a moment to spend outdoors, I’m happy. In July, here in Texas, this is limited by the heat. Morning is about it. Like the butterfly, I’m a little slow-moving, only for me it’s the hot temperatures that limit me. Cool mornings are when I can putter in the garden and do what needs to be done, in my limited time. Weekends I have the most time.

Which I fill up trying to get as much done as humanly possible. Best weekends are the one where I look forward to work on Monday as a respite to rest a bit.

The question is, what did I learn today? How can I use that to be better by nightfall? Some days it’s little things. Others, it’s very large lessons that may take days or months to fully digest and process. I will deliberately experiment on myself to see what I’ve learned and how I can be better - like making my bed. I caught a lot of flack in years past by talking about making the bed - it’s unhygienic! commentors said - but the fact remains that if you try to make order from chaos, you will feel better for it. And that will lead in time to being a better person, to being happier overall. Setting small things in order, whenever you have a moment to spare, will become a habit that will stand you in good stead through many parts of your life. The concept of returning the grocery cart. Or making sure your sink is shiny (thanks, FlyLady! I miss your program).

For the last several months I’ve been using an app as a reminder suite. It’s called Streaks. I think I paid a few dollars for it, I don’t recall for sure. And while I’m using it on iOS, I don’t know if it’s available for Android. So this isn’t exactly a review and recommend. More a… find the tool that works for you. Keeping a physical calendar or notebook doesn’t work for me, I tend to lose them, become blind to them* and my phone is constantly on me and with me. So this might not work for you. The concept of the app is that you set up tasks, assign them timelines, and mark them off as you do them. They reset automagically overnight, and you do it again, and your ‘streak’ of completions begins to add up. How long can you maintain an unbroken streak? You are competing against yourself, and you are exercising your discipline and self-control. I use it to track everything from chicken-care to taking my vitamins to sweeping the floors. It’s making me into a better housekeeper and probably healthier although I do need to get better about the exercise routines.

But that’s the thing. There isn’t a wrong answer to the question mark of a morning. You will fail. Sure. Some days will be backwards momentum instead of ‘better’ and those days, you can still use to learn. Might even learn more on a day like that than you would on a day where everything was routine and boring and planned perfectly. Some days, I don’t realize what I’ve learned until later. I’m not always good at this. Most days I’m actually bad at it. Which is why a butterfly gets me started on contemplating what life holds for me. It’s a focus for the weird random contemplations that can coalesce into this.

Today. Look around. Find something beautiful and joyful and consider it. Find a way to make your life better, even if it’s tiny progress on a much larger goal. A lifetime of progress happens one moment at a time.

*If something is where I can see it all the time, I stop being able to see it. It fades into unreality, shimmering right there in plain sight. Unless I interact with it, like a door or the coffee pot. I don’t know, I just know I stop seeing until I make a real effort to focus on it.