D.I.Y. in 2010: The Self-Actualized Post It Note Resolution Wreath

Happy new year! Happy back-to-work! Happy credit card debt, happy wtf! If you’re anything like moi, Miss Emergency, you’ve spent the last two to four weeks eating and drinking in excess, laughing and chatting your way into nooks and crannies of conversation about ideas and people you never expected, and maybe a couple of nights you’ve tossed and turned, wondering whether or not you’ve benefitted by anything that happened to you in 2009. Also like Miss Emergency, the question you’re left with at the end of your drunken, sugar-laden holidays is this: shouldn't I be making resolutions around this time?

(enter Carrie Bradshaw-style rhetorical question)
When it comes to taking on 2010, how can we actualize the lessons we've learned without inflating them and placing unrealistic demands on ourselves?

For starters, don’t purchase a $6 Brazilian wish-ribbon that wears off your wrist once your wish is “granted.” Or do buy one. I mean, they are cute. But maybe don't pay shipping, at least.

If you are looking for something a little more wordy in the resolution department, but you're sick of intangible holier-than-thou resolutions that send you crashing harder than a Milky Way binge, I present to you for your consideration
Miss Emergency’s “Self–Actualized Resolution Wreath”

Materials Needed: marker, 8-12 post-it notes, reflections and/or witticisms overheard that you wish you had thought of

Optional: Public door where all your friends will see wreath. (Otherwise you can assemble it on the wall facing your toilet. This is where I put mine.)

First let me make clear that the Self-Affirmation wreath is a work of love. Specifically, self-love. Just as we may not agree on the definition of disputed terms such as “grace,” “crazy,” “insecure,” “manipulative,” “creative,” or “toxic,” we may also disagree on exactly how to define "self-love."

We all know resolutions lead to affirmations and such can teeter into narcissism and myopic self-aggrandizement (which makes your one-bedroom apartment resemble a mental hospital ward); alternately, vague, saccharine-sweet do-goody aphorisms, in the vein of the Golden Rule (sweet, but you need help applying lofty goals to your actual life, the one where people make you want to poke your eyeballs out with a nail file sometimes) are not really that realistic, either. You need a talisman that reflects your sky-high pursuits as well as your snarky lows. You need a circle of life that witnesses you in all your yin yang glory.

This wreath recipe contains specifications Miss Emergency believes will ensure that your wreath is a balance of kindness and badass-ness, abstraction and keepin’ it real. Because let's face it, we're six days in already, and I'm just now getting around to writing some resolutions. If you're like me, you're not on the fast track to change.

Steps to make Miss Emergency’s Self-Actualized Wreath:
1. Make a list of rules to live by in 2010.


2. Now, cross them off, one by one,
and make a list of rules you wish everyone else lived by.
Ok, that’s better.

3. Decide whether or not you will adhere to a consistent imperative verb phrase to start each post-it note, or if you will, as they say, free-style it.
Some suggestions:
Commandment-style “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”
Pro’s: quirky and fun to use Bible-talk like “thine” and “thy”
Con’s: Confusion is possible about who exactly is speaking and who is being spoken to

Second-person definitive style “You are X; You are Y”
Pro’s: Clears up confusion of Commandment style (you’re speaking to you in your more lucid moments)
Con’s: It’s sort of fucked up. And, the maintenance guys in your apartment complex already find way to much to talk to you about when they’re in your apartment so do you really want to hand them this bit of hermit insanity on a silver platter?

Miss Emergency went with the free-style approach but she’s not the most graphic designer-minded, so you have to determine #3 for yourself.

4. Revise your list from #2 by adding two to three Pet Peeve affirmations, which are just plain old opinions about things like body odor, hair, pets, fashion, etc.


5. Revise by adding two to three Thinly-Veiled Rants that are really just barely-disguised responses to someone you’re currently angry at.


6. Do not rush through steps 2, 4, or 5. If you arrive at #6 within two days of beginning this project, start over until it takes you four days.

7. I’m serious. Start over and slow down. The last thing you want is a top-heavy wreath with mostly Pet Peeves about overly-earnest 19 year olds or people who smell like their cats, or conversely, a wreath made up mostly of Rants about that girl who told everyone you were the one on the you tube video who let her stuff hang out of her thong at the faculty talent show when everyone was dressed alike and there was no need for names. Ahem. Then your wreath really is a diary entry, and you should see #6.

8. Ok, now you can take a look at your list, this time searching out four to five Lofty Affirmations that really do remind you of life lessons you’ve learned that apply to MORE THAN TWO situations you’ve experienced in 2009.


Here is where if you are anything like Miss Emergency, your friends’ smartass remarks will really come in handy. Because girl friends who’ve known you over ten years say shit that’s applicable, true, and probably based on the fact that they’ve seen you barricade yourself in a dorm room for three weeks straight wearing a robe and watching Ally McBeal. The snarky witticisms these and other confidants come up with, especially after they talk you down from a manic episode or a rage fest--those are Lofty Affirmations.

Here are some of mine. I hope your friends are as smart:
-It’s okay to keep your mouth shut around people who are dumber than you.
-Just because you didn’t know I was (fill in blank—former prostitute, trilingual, victim of abuse) doesn’t mean you are entitled to that information about me or that I have deceived you. I just didn’t think you needed to know.
-Follow your joy.
-You are not responsible for others’ happiness.
-Sometimes if you just ask for what you want, you get it.
-Putting people into boxes only serves a purpose to a certain extent.
-It’s okay to take twice as long as the average bear to make up your mind; you’ve been letting others do it for you for so long you are out of practice.
-This is not about you.
-Quiet time is necessary.
-Life is not an emergency.

9. Condense, clarify. Make some judgment calls and identify Rants, Lofty Affirmations, and Pet Peeves to make sure you’ve got a balance between the three. If it takes more than 2 post-it notes, it's probably a diary entry, not an affirmation, but because this is all about actualizing and being honest about where we are on the path to growth, I have let one get a little ranty.

9. (I gave it the same step number because you should have figured this out already.) Write each on its own post-it note. This is not brain surgery; it’s a wreath made of post-it notes.
10. Stick them in a wreath shape on top of a pre-existing wreath or any door/flat wall surface.

Voila! Self Actualization in a Wreath, all by you! (With a little help from Miss Emergency!)

I hope you enjoy the soul-searching required by the S.A. Wreath, and if it is a painful process, just remember, there’s no emergency—you can always just write down ten different ways of saying you are smarter and prettier than your friends and call it a day.

With this first blog of the new year, I promise to
preserve order, accept change---but,
all in due time.
-Miss Emergency