The Three B's

Does anyone else out there have this problem? I spend way too much time on IM during the day. To be fair, it IS one of the primary modes of communication at work - my boss may not pick up her phone or check her voice mail --EVER -- but she'll certainly shoot back a reply complete with goofy smilie face emoticon if I ping her with an IM.

Unfortunately I've been using the same IM since college and at every job I've had since - so EVERYBODY who knows me knows it. I hear most frequently from D who checks in to ask me about my weekend and tell me about his latest conquest. BBGB and I chat on and off but she is arguably the only person I know who is more busy than I am during the day. Legal Girl likes to ping me about shows. TechMan gripes about being the IT guru for a bunch of luddite blockheads. FrontDesk gripes about, well being at the front desk all day and Sk8terBoi tries to keep me up to date on the latest shop drama.

I love hearing snippets of my friends lives and keeping track of people. I rarely Myspace any more and only hit Facebook when I get notification that somebody has done some obnoxious thing to my account - anyone been turned into a vampire yet?

But last week everybody wanted to chat. Of course, I was slammed for the first time at work. changing my status to offline helped, but that doesn't fool the people who know me best. Which is just about everybody. By Wednesday, I instituted the Three B's status on my outgoing tag as in:

If it's not Burning, Bleeding or Broken...come back later.

The funny thing is, it actually worked. By Friday all I had to do was add "Three B's!" and the IM was quiet. The funny thing is that although the Three B's started as a way to ward off other people, it's also begun to translate to warding off the internal pitfalls that get in the way of being my own best person. I mean, how many times do I overreact, or let anxiety keep me from enjoying the moment? Cause really, like the Dali Lama said:

There's no point in worry, if there is a solution, it will become apparent. If not, there is nothing you can do about it. Why worry.

So how to the Three B's apply? For example, when I catch myself getting worked up over something, it goes:

Feeling anxious, stressed out, worried? Is it broken, burning or bleeding? Then chill out.

Feelings hurt? Offended? Annoyed? Is it bleeding, broken or burning? then let it go.

Hurried, harried, pressured? Is it burning, broken or bleeding? Then just relax.

You get the idea...The Three B's is rapidly becoming a personal mantra.

Come to think of it -- look out, it's another THIS I BELIEVE coming up--

I believe in having personal mantras. I believe there's nothing magical about a good mantra: I believe there's something powerful about the repetition of important helpful thought patterns to counter years of repetitive thoughts that are not empowering me to be the best person I can be.

AND, I believe my chicken is done cooking (I can smell it from here) so I'm off to satisfy another one of my beliefs:

I believe that feeding oneself is ordinary, but enjoying a good meal divine.