Stumbling forward...

OK, well, after getting stuck at that one lesson for...a long time, it happened again. It hasn't been quite the same type of stuckness, but progress has been slow. The next lesson to get me really stuck was the very next one, Lesson 27, because it asks that you repeat the message throughout the day--at least every half hour, and more if possible. "Above all else, I want to see." This one, although it seems easy on the surface, was a huge problem for me! I would do it once, and then it might be several hours before I remembered to do it again. I tried all sorts of things--posting notes, writing little reminders on my fingernails--all for naught. I guess I could have given myself a pass on it, because the lesson says this:

The real question is, how often will you remember? How much do you want today's idea to be true? Answer one of these questions, and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were repeating today's idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort.

I felt like I should be able to do better though. Was that just my ego? Oh, probably!! But I was doing so poorly at remembering that it was very discouraging to me. I felt like I needed something to help me remember, so I started to look around. I ended up buying this little timer, which vibrates and/or flashes a light (thinking about having it at work, I didn't want to have an audible alarm!!). It's a pretty neat little gadget--you set it for a certain amount of time, and it remembers that time interval for you so you can easily reset it.

Is this cheating? I don't know. After I got my timer, it still took me several days until I felt like I could move on from this lesson--because you have to remember to reset the silly thing and that turned out to be harder than I thought.

I guess it points to the fact that I tend to sleepwalk through my days a lot--occupied with this and that, the tasks at hand, the thoughts about whatever that fly through my mind. The timer isn't a magic bullet, but it does work to wake me up a little bit.

Today I started on Lesson 31--"I am not the victim of the world I see." Seems like a pretty good lesson to start off a brand new year.