There’s a mountain of platitudes, clichés, and "old saws" which have been with us for centuries, and some from more modern pop culture. Their main function is to provide a convenient canned response for those seeking, or compelled to offer, a small helping of wisdom.
When I see or hear one of these, I think about them way more than necessary (no filters again;-), and find that I’m playing with their words or meaning just BECAUSE they’re clichés.
These “old saws” do contain some good old common sense, but to work for us ADDers, some need a liiiittle tweaking. So I’ll be doing some hacks on them, and “resharpening” these old saws, so they work again.
When I see or hear one of these, I think about them way more than necessary (no filters again;-), and find that I’m playing with their words or meaning just BECAUSE they’re clichés.
These “old saws” do contain some good old common sense, but to work for us ADDers, some need a liiiittle tweaking. So I’ll be doing some hacks on them, and “resharpening” these old saws, so they work again.
And away we go!
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life”
It’s a swell thought and general enough to accommodate all manner of hoping or coping mechanisms, but a double helping of lemon meringue in the sky. “So I can just start from scratch, like getting a Get-Out-of ADHD-Free-Card?” Some resharpening for ADHD brain wiring is called for.
Folks with ADHD tend toward the black-and-white, the all- or-nothing, go or stop. We'll see something out there we want and floor it down the road. In some cases, we'll go all in for a future for ourselves. That’s a good thing, unless we- 1) disregard or forget what we’ve learned about what does or doesn’t work for us, or- 2) go all in on the past, thereby quashing any notion of a future. Maybe we get stuck or do nothing, not believing we can pull it off. Combine these with the fact that most of us have difficulty feeling ourselves in a future that contains ourselves in a real way. So, what do to?
Resharpened version: ”Today is the Last Day of the First Part of Your Life”. This is a pie we can take a bite out of. We’re not ignoring our past here or employing denial, nor are we deconstructing everything that we consider a mistake or a fail. We’re being informed by our past- looking at events as “data”, and using the info to guide us as we learn and employ new ADHD management techniques. What we're not doing is being ruled by beliefs of what we think we can't do, or getting stuck for lack of ADHD management skills. We work on approaches like this a lot in the ADHD coaching partnership.
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life”
It’s a swell thought and general enough to accommodate all manner of hoping or coping mechanisms, but a double helping of lemon meringue in the sky. “So I can just start from scratch, like getting a Get-Out-of ADHD-Free-Card?” Some resharpening for ADHD brain wiring is called for.
Folks with ADHD tend toward the black-and-white, the all- or-nothing, go or stop. We'll see something out there we want and floor it down the road. In some cases, we'll go all in for a future for ourselves. That’s a good thing, unless we- 1) disregard or forget what we’ve learned about what does or doesn’t work for us, or- 2) go all in on the past, thereby quashing any notion of a future. Maybe we get stuck or do nothing, not believing we can pull it off. Combine these with the fact that most of us have difficulty feeling ourselves in a future that contains ourselves in a real way. So, what do to?
Resharpened version: ”Today is the Last Day of the First Part of Your Life”. This is a pie we can take a bite out of. We’re not ignoring our past here or employing denial, nor are we deconstructing everything that we consider a mistake or a fail. We’re being informed by our past- looking at events as “data”, and using the info to guide us as we learn and employ new ADHD management techniques. What we're not doing is being ruled by beliefs of what we think we can't do, or getting stuck for lack of ADHD management skills. We work on approaches like this a lot in the ADHD coaching partnership.
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