The 2012 All-Consuming Agenda

I've been meaning to post my 2012 Operation Consumption Liberation schedule for a few days, in addition to a post about how I'm doing during my second-annual January without added sugar. And now here we are, January 31.  How does this happen?  

Time, why do I lose track of you so?

Anyway, I promise a post about my sugar-free month later, as well as my weekly post for my other Operation this year (Fear Liberation--OFL, yo!).  But for now, without further ado, here are the habits, things, and tendencies that I'll be trying to consume less or none of--or trying to let consume less of me--for the remaining eleven months of 2012:

• FEBRUARY: Snacking
• MARCH: Frivolous Spending
• APRIL: Gluten 
• MAY: Gasoline
• JUNE: Mindless Time Suck Activities (Facebook, web browsing, TV, etc.)
• JULY: Caffeine
• AUGUST: Needless Beauty Products
• SEPTEMBER: Dairy and Meat
• OCTOBER: Smartphone and texting
• NOVEMBER: Alcohol
• DECEMBER: Anxiety

As you can see, there are a few challenges from 2011 that I'm revisiting (Alcohol, Gasoline, and Caffeine--plus this month's Sugar challenge), and there are also a few old challenges that I've merged with another to make it a little more interesting and challenging: Superfluous Web-Browsing and TV/Netflix/Hulu are lumped together in "Mindless Time Suck Activities" in June; I'll be going without meat AND dairy for a Vegan September; and I've combined my two months dedicated to curbing my Frivolous Spending into one.  

And I'm taking up a few new challenges this year (Snacking, Gluten, Needless Beauty Products, Smartphone & texting, and Anxiety). The last is a little different, in that I will be working with my own behavior to try to prevent anxiety from becoming all-consuming in a very anxiety-provoking time (the holidays).  Also, I am not sure if my October challenge is possible.  This is 2012, not 2007.  A lot has changed...  But I'm willing to aim high, for now anyway.

 So there you have it.  And now I need to go cook some substantial meals, so that, come February 1 tomorrow, I might be less inclined to snack late at night due to eating a popcorn dinner (or a chocolate cake, given the cessation of my sugar fast...)


Cakey! The Cake from Outer Space: "Birthday" from Dyna Moe on Vimeo.

A Love Letter

A love letter:

Coffee, you haunt my mornings.  Your tantalizing scent beckons me from the endless coffee shops in this city of Espresso, tickling my nostrils to awake a deep yearning to feel you warming the mug in my hands, pleasing my taste buds with your robust flavors.  I want to savor your aftertaste on my tongue long after you’ve entered me to penetrate my digestive tract with your caffeinated powers.  Oh, Coffee.

Coffee, my coffee: you are not unlike a lover who has been called away from me for business in Hungary or Cairo.  I want to be with you so badly, but I can’t.  Okay, technically I can, but I won’t.  Because I’m a masochist?  Maybe, but it’s more than that.  I need to prove to myself that I can be as happy and fulfilled without you as I am with you, and that, in the future, I can enjoy your company without such attachment.  It isn’t healthy to crave something as badly as I crave you, Coffee. 

Coffee, all the yogis say you’re no good for me, but they don’t understand what a special relationship you and I have.  To pass the time until we’re reunited, I’ve been seeing Rooibos Tea, who is quite nice.  But as much as I enjoy Rooibos’s company, nothing compares to you.  Without you, the world seems a little foggier, sleepier, blander.  I walk through my days a pale imitation of myself when I’m with you; I’ve little of my usual pep and vibrancy.  Poor Rooibos probably thinks I’m a total square but you know better, Coffee.

Good god, Coffee, you really have a hold on me.  It’s closing in on four weeks since I quit you, but you know as well as I do that I haven’t *really* quit you.  I may have put some physical distance between us, but I can’t stop thinking about you.  Every morning, I call your name, I swear, I do.  I’m counting the days until we are reunited, when I can again touch my lips to you, and drink you in.  Oh, Coffee, my Coffee.

Mission: Consume Less

con∙sume: verb \kən-΄süm\

 -transitive verb

"Too Much Catnip" Shirt.Woot t-shirt by Spiritgreen

1 : to do away with completely: DESTROY

2 a: to spend wastefully: SQUANDER

   b: USE UP

3 a: to eat or drink especially in great quantity

   b: to enjoy avidly: DEVOUR

4 : to engage fully: ENGROSS

5 : to utilize as a customer

 -intransitive verb

1 : to waste or burn away: PERISH

2 : to utilize economic goods

“The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.” 

–Frank Herbert, Dune.

There is a butt-load of human consumption transpiring at any given second on planet Earth . No, I can't exactly quantify "butt-load;" I'm no statistician. But think about it: we’re consuming oxygen, we’re consuming energy, we’re consuming calories, and we’re consuming alcohol. We’re engaged in all-consuming TV shows, all-consuming jobs, all-consuming arguments, and, if we’re lucky, all-consuming sex. We’re using our consumer power for new shoes at Nordstrom’s, new apps for our iPhones, and trash cans at Home Depot to transport the waste of our consumption to the curb, where it will be picked up by a gas-consuming truck and toted to a space- and natural resource- consuming landfill. Yep, there is a whole lotta consumption going on.

Now there’s nothing wrong with consumption.  In moderation, that is.  But the American culture isn’t much for moderation.  You don’t have to look very hard to find evidence of this society’s penchant for overindulgence.  Alcoholism, early onset obesity and childhood obesity, credit card debt, overfilled landfills, smog alerts, our over-consumption leads to so many negative outcomes.  There IS such thing as too much of a good thing.

For the year of 2011, I’m resolving to consume less.  I'm breaking free of the manacles of Too Much.  Call it Operation Consumption Liberation.  

Every month, I will abstain from or minimize my partaking of some thing or practice in which I feel my overindulgence has a negative impact, be it on my personal well-being, or on the well-being of the human race and planet Earth. My mission is NOT to permanently eliminate any of these habits and dependencies, but rather, in eliminating/reducing my consumption of them for a month, to lessen their overall prevalence in my life.  I like wine, but it wouldn’t hurt my liver to drink less.

Below is a rough monthly schedule of the twelve reduction/elimination challenges I will take on over the course of the year. The order of the challenges is subject to change, but not the content. Each month on this blog, I will clearly define the monthly challenge’s rules and stipulations, explore the impacts of overindulging in the identified item or behavior, and write about what I experience and learn as I leave it behind.

 Operation Consumption Liberation: Monthly Challenges

• January: Sugar (processed & added)
• February: Frivolous spending (the Eating/Drinking Out edition)
• March: Alcohol
• April: Gasoline (planes, trains, and automobiles)
• May: Frivolous spending (the Goods and Services edition)
• June: Caffeine 
• July: Electricity/water
• August: Superfluous web browsing (Facebook, etc.)
• September: Food & goods from outside 300 miles of my person
• October: Watching TV, Hulu, Netflix, etc.
• November: Meat
• December: Paper and other waste (packaging, etc.) 

Please follow me on Operation Consumption Liberation! AND if you recognize anything on this list that you feel your life would benefit from going without, feel free to join me on that challenge of this journey.  I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments section.  Likewise, if you are planning any similar challenges for the year or for a month, let me know, and I'll link to you.

Wish me luck as I kick off the mission with a well-needed sugar cleanse in the Christmas cookie aftermath!