While I don’t consider myself to be a very rash or emotional person in general, helping someone through the birthing of a baby is a particularly stressful time. During the labor, there is a lot of someone else in pain and a great deal of waiting. And for the most part, everything feels out of control, or at least out of your control.

Because of my meditation practice, however, I found that I was accepting of these circumstances. I had a decent handle on what I could do to help and whether or not worrying about it would benefit me or Melanie.

Through the early stages of labor, I focused on being present for Melanie, on making sure that she was as comfortable as she could be. When she was rushed to the Operating Room with a breech baby about to come out (a situation very few medical professionals have experience with), I did not feel the need to panic. I knew that I could do nothing about the circumstances, but I could be there for Melanie no matter what the resolution. I give meditation much of the credit for this mindset. I give much of the rest of the credit to our awesome doula, Kathleen, who was a calm, knowledgeable presence the entire time.

The meditative mindset has also come in handy since the birth of the girls. There was a lot of waiting–in the NICU, in the hospital room, in the pediatrician’s office–and I found that my tolerance for the waiting was pretty high.

And then there are the babies. They require a great deal of patience and calm. I often find myself remembering to breathe, to focus on my physical reaction to crying and crying and crying in order to not let that non-stop pressure overwhelm me.

On the whole, then, I would say that the meditation has been essential for my making it through the whole experience with an even keel. From what I have read and heard, the effect of a consistent meditation practice continues to build as you stay consistent with it. I have kept it up but not as purposefully. My streak, according to the Calm app, is just over 40 days. Quite a few of those sessions were just quick trips to falling asleep or napping, but that is useful too. As I start to develop a slightly more regular schedule, I plan on making sure focused meditation has a place in it because I think that will be quite beneficial.

I  was close to settling on an option. Then Melanie went into labor late Saturday night. On the way to the hospital, I realized that none of my ideas were worth starting at this critical time. I know, you’re thinking, “And it took you how long to figure that out?”

If I tried to force my new routine on my situation, I would most likely just fail and cause myself, and my family, an unnecessary amount of stress. Instead, I need to recognize that this is a season for taking care of new babies and Theo and Melanie.

I might get some blog posts up, and I might not. Either way will be fine. I don’t need to complicate everything with a new 30 Day Challenge. My ideas will be there when the time is right. And I trust that you will be too.

Or, as Melanie just suggested, I could do the stand 30 Days of Taking Care of Twins Challenge. Although, you might not be able to play along at home. 

She has mentioned several times that the process is frustrating because they often do not treat her like a person, they treat her like a case. And she has suggested that she would never have felt that way, or been treated that way, by the midwives she had with Theo.

The main difference in the care given is that the midwives make it abundantly clear that they do in fact care. They listen and ask questions and encourage you to ask questions. They show compassion and offer encouragement.

To be fair, the doctors and nurses have generally given that overall impression too. But they have gatekeepers. They have a whole crew of receptionists and assistants and administrative staff who keep the place running smoothly. That running smoothly, however, is mostly for the benefit of the doctor at the cost of the patients.

I realize that I don’t have the behind the curtain perspective for most of this stuff, that there are best practices and reasons for many of the policies that are in place, all of which is likely overly complicated by insurance. But it is difficult to understand how the patient can be so far done on the priority list. Or at least have that as the dominant impression.

Mostly, it just reminds me to be empathetic, to remember the John Watson quote, “Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” And it makes me wish other people would remember it.

I had acclimated, allowing a slow build of imperfections to become the norm.

The new screen protector was clear, nearly imperceptible atop the original glass. Not only did it look good, but it felt good too. My thumb would glide across the screen with little hesitation where there had been friction before.

Just moments before, I thought the screen protector was doing alright. Sure, it had some issues, but I didn’t think it warranted going through all the trouble to replace it. I had to first take it off to see what the screen used to look like, to realize how much the old protector was changing my experience with the phone.

It is that way in so many areas of my life.

I noticed a stark difference when I finally picked up my new glasses. There was the slight change in prescription (which actually took longer than I thought to get used to), but even more than that was the clarity of the lenses. The old ones were scuffed and scraped, with small bubbles from the deteriorated anti-glare coating. The news lenses were immaculate. So much so, that small smudges and particles of dust now distract me. I have to keep them clean because I notice now when anything obscures my vision.

When we painted the bedroom, it was obvious that the walls hadn’t been cleaned in some time. When I start to eat too much, it isn’t generally one giant meal that does me in. It’s a slow increase in the amount I eat that causes my clothes to start feeling uncomfortable. It’s a gradual uptick in the amount of coffee I drink that makes my need for caffeine so strong.

Unwanted habits can sneak up on us in our writing too. We start taking more frequent breaks to check Facebook or put off writing that chapter just a few hours at a time. We grow accustomed to putting off the work, to allowing distractions to keep us from the grind. And then a day has gone by, and another, and then we wonder where the month went.

We have to be wary of acclimating to our circumstances. Pointing a few degrees in the wrong direction can quickly derail our entire plan if we don’t take time to reassess and correct.

But we have to make sure we notice the good changes too.

I have been slowly losing weight over the last few months–mostly by getting some healthy protein in the morning and not keeping much unhealthy food at the office–but I don’t really notice it. Occasionally, though, someone will say, “Have you lost weight?” or, as a co-worker recently accused, “You’re getting skinny.” (I’m pretty sure she meant it as a compliment, but I’m also aware that I haven’t really been putting on any muscle.) I see my face and body in the mirror every day (almost every day), so it is difficult to notice the accumulation of change.

You might haven’t forgotten how difficult it was to run your first 5k if you’ve been practicing for a half-marathon. If you’ve been writing on a consistent basis, you’ve probably improved a great deal. But you might not notice because you see your work all the time. You notice the flaws and are comparing yourself to where you want to be, not where you used to be.

Make sure you take time to appreciate the good habits you’ve built. Not so you can be proud of yourself. So you can see that you are committed to your goals and allow that to serve as motivation to keep at them.

But it’s just sending data over the phone lines. It doesn’t cost any more than a phone call, a local phone call. Okay, it does cost a little bit of electricity. And it does require an employee to stack the pages in the machine and dial the number. But that’s about it.

I mean, I can understand if the company doesn’t want to charge $.10 to fax one page. It really isn’t worth their time. And while they could let you do the faxing yourself, they then have the liability of your possibly breaking the machine or actually dialing a phone sex hotline (I assume these still exist) and just entertaining the operator on the other end with the beeping and hissing sounds of a fax machine.

I can understand a dollar for a one page fax. But faxing ten pages requires almost exactly the same effort and resources as faxing one. That’s why I was surprised to the hear the cost of the first page ($1.49) was just slightly more than each additional page ($1.29).

I can’t really understand how that pricing scheme makes sense, but they might have actually gotten away with it if we had 3 or 4 pages to send. I suppose that’s the point. This was a stack of medical records, though, 66 pages worth. When I mentioned that to the employee, and how it would be over $70 to send a fax. He suggested we might see if we could email it, a service they could provide for just $.10 or so per page, a service I can provide myself for free.

I couldn’t remember offhand how much services like eFax cost, but I knew it would be under $15. So, I was happy to walk out without thinking twice about it. I stopped by another, this time independently-owned, shop where I got the 99 cent quote. Quite a savings, but obviously still insane. (Depending on what Internet fax service you use, you can send between 250-1000 pages per month for $7-$15 with overages in the 3 to 5 cent range.)

I imagine that people don’t come in all that often needing to fax 50 pages, or even 20, so I wouldn’t expect the company to design its entire price structure off of this possibility. They clearly didn’t want me to use their fax services, though. If they had taken a moment to consider if a large fax is worth $75, they might have realized that that was ludicrous.

They might have said something like, “We could do $1.50 for the first page and $.10 for each additional page.” Or even $.15 or $.20. I might have been willing to pay $15, especially knowing that they were giving me such a break off the original quote. Instead, they basically said, “We don’t want to deal with you and your unusual request. Have you heard of email?” I can’t argue with the second point, of course, because I’m often mystified by how frequently fax machines are still used.

What they provided me with was not good customer service or value. They just gave me a reason not to go back to their store. I’m sure the $10 or $15 I might have spent there isn’t going to have an impact on their bottom line, but it could when it starts to multiply.

These moments come up more often than we realize. Instead of sticking to our standard lines about policy or price or how we don’t want to take an extra step to help someone, we could take a moment to think about the situation. We might remember that fax machines aren’t magic and we can come up with a suitable price structure or compromise or creative solution on the fly. That way, we might not lose a customer, or we might not lose a friend, or we might just make someone’s day.

So, what did I overlook here? Is it really costly for these companies to send faxes? Or is it really that valuable? And in case you were wondering, our printer can send faxes, but we don’t have a landline.

Then my parents rearranged the furniture.

I stubbed my toes and tripped over chairs, running into every solid object in every room I walked through. It didn’t take long to realize where I had gone wrong. I had mistaken my familiarity with the layout, my constant interaction with an unchanged environment, as a natural ability to navigate with limited light. It was just a misunderstanding, one that I haven’t made again. Although, I have made some similar mistakes.

Often, I have some quick success in a new task–playing poker, for example–and I interpret that winning as a sign that I am good at that task, that I have an innate ability. Maybe that has been true on occasion, but most likely it was coincidence. Most likely it was luck. Sometimes the luck runs for a while, allowing me to continue the fantasy. Other times, I push the luck to its limits, ignoring the evidence that might lead me to a different conclusion and giving undue significance to the evidence that supports my belief (this is known as confirmation bias).

I used to play poker on a semi-regular basis with a few different groups of guys, mostly Texas Holdem, mostly cash games that went too long into the night. I did alright, probably breaking even or just above on the whole. I also participated in two different “tournaments” that had fewer than twenty people and were held unofficially at a bowling alley with all money exchanging hands outside the building because somehow that was going to ensure that no one got into any trouble.

At the first one, I came in third, which meant that I got my money back. At the second one, I won and pocketed a little bit of cash. This lead me to believe that I might be good at Texas Holdem tournaments, maybe even just good at poker. I tested this theory more than a few times on the Internet, and eventually discovered that I was probably just lucky for those couple of wins.

Or maybe I did have a little bit of inherent talent. Maybe what I should have discovered is that whatever talent I had, it was not enough to compete against players who had experience, who had spent time learning strategy and psychology, who had made an investment in their game.

Raw talent (when it exists) can give us a minor advantage; it can place us slightly ahead of our competition for a time. But that time is quite short in the context of an entire career, a life of dedication to a craft. What really allows us to stay in the game is a commitment to improving over time, a commitment to practice and sweat and grinding through the parts that don’t come as easily.

This knowledge may or may not have helped me walk around the house at night. But it might have allowed me to appreciate a skill I did have–memory–and encouraged me to pursue that. Instead I learned a simpler lesson: keep your hands out front when walking around in the dark.

It struck me as almost surreal, an elegant, colorful, spindly, waterfowl in a place where I normally just see pigeons or grackles or the occasional song bird. It was just strutting down the sidewalk, though, clearly not interested in my ruminations about how much it didn’t belong in this residential area in the midst of a major city.

I wondered what it was even doing there (as I attempted to sneak up on it for a better photo). Why was it walking through the manicured lawns and neatly trimmed hedges? What would draw a bird like that to a place like this?

And then I saw it snatch a worm out of the grass. Just pluck it right out as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which I guess it was.

Mostly, I thought about how little I know about the world in general and about the specifics of any individual in particular. Too often, I write off the odd duck, the purple cow, as a confused anomaly. Instead, I should probably do a little more work to consider what has brought the strange into the familiar. And I should try to figure out if it’s succeeding and why.

“Grey crowned crane at Martin Mere” by © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Let me know if you have any guesses for what kind of bird this is. For a few minutes, I hoped for the Grey Crowned Crane, but I’ve only ever seen that in a zoo (it’s a South Saharan bird). Also, it wasn’t nearly so awesome and crowned. Instead, I now think it’s just a grey heron or something.

Here I submit a case for scarcity through my recent experience with Ting, a cellular service provider who believes in charging you only for the services you use and according to the amount you use rather than relying on bundles and expensive unlimited plans that you might not take advantage of. Several months ago, I switched to Ting because I didn’t want to get stuck in a long term or expensive cell phone plan. This isn’t really a review of their service, which will help you save money on your wireless bill, but I do recommend you check Ting out.* I have been extremely happy with the service, with very few issues, and I noticed several things about my behavior after switching.

I began to pay more attention.

With Ting’s account structure, you pay for a “bucket” for each service (voice, text, data) that you use in a month. And when you use more than your current bucket, you are moved into the next category, which is more (although the larger buckets cost less per unit used). They make it easy to track the minutes, data, or texts that you use each month, so I found myself keeping an eye on which apps were using data.

I learned more about what could be downloaded to my phone while on wifi and then consumed while offline. (Podcasts are my friends; YouTube not so much.) I noticed how long I talked to people. And I really noticed when I was put on hold for a long time. I found myself actually thinking about whether or not I needed Facebook updates while on the road (I do not).

I became more resourceful.

In addition to learning which apps were using data, I found ways to restrict that data. I became more familiar with my phone and what it could do. For example, I learned that I can still use Google Maps or Waze to navigate even with my data turned off. (Of course, this doesn’t provide live updates of traffic or hazards or offer rerouting.)

I discovered Google Hangouts combined with Google Voice Dialer, which allows you to make voice calls and send texts over wifi (or data) instead of using minutes. I learned that by using these apps, I didn’t even need to send or receive standard text messages and disabled them on my phone. Since Ting doesn’t charge you for text services when you don’t use texts,* this helped me save each month. I then started to think about whether or not a given communication warranted a phone call or just an email or text. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it; I just made my decision more intentional.

I began to appreciate my time more.

As I mentioned, I really began to notice when I was on hold while using my minutes. With an unlimited plan, I probably wouldn’t have cared as much, but when you are getting close to moving into the next payment tier, time really is money. Of course, time is valuable whether you are on the phone or not, but I sometimes forget that.

I also find that I use my phone much less when I am not around the house or at work (where I have wifi access). Because it would mean using data, I actually consider whether or not to check Facebook or Twitter when I’m out at dinner, or shopping, or hanging at the park. And often the answer is no. I realize that I don’t need that constant flow of information when I remember that I will be paying for it. This consideration helps me be more present. Granted, I still have plenty of stuff on my phone to distract me while offline, but even the little nudges make a difference.

Overall, my main argument in favor of scarcity (at least as it concerns the case with Ting), is that helps me be more mindful. It pushes me to put a little more thought into my actions before taking them. And that can be a great benefit, especially when information and entertainment is always available and our reaching for it is nearly automatic.

What did I miss? Leave a comment below.

* – These links use my referral code, which will give you a $25 credit on your first bill. It will also give me a $25 credit, so I wanted to let you know. You can, of course, just go directly to their site; I recommend their service whether you go through my link*or not.

One of my favorite kinds of writer is the kind who cares, who cares so much that it shows in the work. The kind of writer who doesn’t hide behind insincerity or sarcasm, who isn’t afraid to let emotions bleed into the sentences. I appreciate a writer who crafts amazing sentences, but I really love the one who uses those sentences in service of a moving story.

Melanie is that kind of writer. She doesn’t always feel that way, but she is. (If you don’t know that already, you can find out by seeing some of Melanie’s musings at her website.)

It’s also her birthday, so feel free to wish her a happy one and tell her how great she is. That’s what I’m doing.

But I thought I would take a break from the regular post, from so much introspection, to mention that it has been a horrendous week for many people around the world. A devastating earthquake has killed thousands and displaced thousands more in Nepal. Storms and tornados have caused significant damage across the central United States, not that far from where I live. And so many other tragedies across the globe. There are better places online for you to find the facts of these events. I’m not really qualified to speak to that.

Every day, though, individuals have their lives irrevocably changed even if there aren’t major headlines to alert us to it. If you are interested in giving to organizations that help people whose lives have been wrecked, here are a few links.

Red Cross

Habitat for Humanity

Global Giving