It begins.

Selecting the first book for my project was no easy feat. There are gazillions of self-help books out there: How was I to choose between becoming the most habitually effective person of all time or getting the sexy body of a French woman while eating all the cheese I wanted? For someone who gets overwhelmed by the number of sugar substitutes offered at Dunkin' Donuts, (mental note: Read Don't Sweat the Small Stuff sooner than later), the task of picking one book to focus on for the entire month seemed intimidating and completely insurmountable.


But then one of my best friends suggested her favorite book, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, and thankfully for everyone who has to deal with me on a daily basis (basically, that's just the dog and the boyfriend), the obsessiveness stopped. So did the excessive sweating. The decision was made. 


Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun, prolific author, and resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. This book is short, to-the-point, and brilliant. It's funny, because when I first read the title I thought "when things fall apart" referred to overcoming great life tragedies like death, divorce, terminal illness, discovering you can no longer afford cable. But it's not at all. It's about how to get through an ordinary day and all the sunshine and shit it may bring.


Essentially, Chödrön is all: Hey, guess what. You can whine all you want, but life is always going to be challenging. You can try to distract yourself from the challenges or flee from them altogether. Or you can relax into the chaos and groundlessness and learn from them. And I kind of love her for it.


Because let's face it, I've have some chaos ahead of me this month: The dog and I are moving in with the boyfriend (and to a whole different borough to boot). And, I've got my baby brother's wedding back home thrown in there just to make it a little more interesting. Maybe to a normal person that doesn't seem like such a big deal. But to someone who prides herself on her ability to meticulously spread peanut butter on toast just like the mom in the Jif commercial, it's supremely chaotic and scary. And now it should be completely clear why this book is a good beginning.


Have you read any of Chödrön's work? Are you skilled at choosing between sugar substitutes and managing other life crisises?