New Words to Help You Love Your Life Now

 day as I was sitting in the restroom of a coffee shop, I glanced at the wall in front of me where either bored or inspired patrons had inscribed¹ their particular sentiments.

One scrawled² word caught my eye: Exploreality.

“What a cool word,” I thought to myself.

Walking back to my table, I turned the word over and over in my head.

Exploreality. Exploreality.

I’m not sure what the artist meant when she scribbled³ the word on the wall, but it did what good art is supposed to do – it made me think.

That’s how I understood the word and it got me pondering about what it meant to me.Explore reality.

A portmanteau is a combination of two words into one new word such as exploreality. Here are a few of my own portmanteaus to sum up my thoughts about the inspirational restroom art.

1. Extendenial

Why did the bathroom writer encourage us to explore reality?

Because we spend most of our time in a type of veiled, extended denial – extendenial.

Denial sometimes gets a bad rap. When we are traumatized or experience severe adversity, denial is a protective factor that helps us rest before we actively⁵ address the trauma⁴ or problem.

But used too much, denial gets in our way.

It prevents us from seeing what is right in front of us – the life that we have, not the life that we think we should have.

It’s this latter idea that forms our veil of extendenial. We don’t embrace the reality of what is in front of us because we hold an illusion that “someday” life will be ____________. (Fill in the blank with whatever you don’t have right now.)

Don’t get me wrong. There is certainly nothing wrong with having goals.

But how much of life are you missing by thinking, “I’ll be happy when . . .”?

2. Busymbiotic

A way to extendenial is to be busymbiotic – having a symbiotic⁶ relationship with being busy.

Our social norm of “busy = productive = good” has caused us to glom onto busyness as though it is an integral and reciprocal part of us. Just like a symbiote, we think we need busyness in order to do well in the world and be happy.

But busyness is just another way to engage in seeking the “someday” life and disengage from the life that you have right now, both the glory and the gloom.

Someone commented on my blog the other day that she decided⁷ to put away the busyness of life so that she could get on with the business of life.

Amen to that.

3. Interactuality

 So, how do you stop being so busymbiotic that you’re in a state of extendenial?

By interacting with your actual life – interactuality.

Let me say again that there is certainly nothing wrong with having goals and being motivated to better yourself in life both emotionally and materially.

But interact with your days now as you are working toward those goals.

Enjoy friendships.

Learn something new.

Notice how you like the aroma⁸ of coffee in the morning but would be happy to not have to smell your partner’s burnt oatmeal again.

Find something that you like about work and emphasize that in your mind. Note the difference between that feeling and the one that comes up when your annoying co-worker walks by.

Life is good and bad, joy and misery⁹, contentment and discontent, and many shades of gray in between those things.

But it’s your actual life. Interact with it.

Love your life now.

4. Remindfulness

Yes, this portmanteau is exactly what it looks like: reminding yourself to be mindful.

Mindfulness is the art and practice of noticing your present experience without judgment¹⁰.

So maybe part of what inhibits¹¹ you from exploring reality is that reality isn’t such a great place for you so it’s easier to be in extendenial.

But is life really that bad or are you making it worse with judgmental thinking?

The thing about mindfulness is that it allows you to be engaged in your current life experience without all of the drama that you add to it in your head.

So for example, as I’ve been writing this, I’ve drifted in and out of extendenial and remindfulness.

Although I enjoy writing, it’s very hard for me. It takes a long time and I can get very easily distracted.

My thoughts tend to go something like this:

“Geez, this is taking forever. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a writer. I really want to do something else right now. Focus . . . focus . . . you can do this. Other people must be faster at this than I am. Maybe I should . . . squirrel!”

You can see that I spend a lot of internal energy wishing my life was something other than it is at the moment.

But when I remind myself to be mindful, I come into the present, take a breath and realize that I’m . . .  okay.

Even with a mind that gets distracted by a squirrel or takes a long time to finish a sentence. It’s all okay and I recognize that my mind has been making me miserable¹² only seconds before by judging my experience of writing.

Now that I’m in the present and not judging it, I can accept that writing brings me both joy and frustration¹³. Like you, I want the joy and not the frustration.

But frustration is a part of life and mindfully accepting the emotion, not magnifying it in my head, and moving on frees me from getting stuck and wishing my life was something that it is not.

Instead, I acknowledge that this is the life I have and to live fully¹⁴ is to interact with it consciously and with mindfulness.

And, as I remind myself to be mindful by taking that deep breath, I look up and notice the sun outside my window and hear the sound of the chimes in the trees as they blow gently in the breeze.

Reality.

I’m exploring mine. What about you?

1 inscribed   

v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接

参考例句：

• His name was inscribed on the trophy. 他的名字刻在奖杯上。
• The names of the dead were inscribed on the wall. 死者的名字被刻在墙上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 scrawled   

乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I tried to read his directions, scrawled on a piece of paper. 我尽量弄明白他草草写在一片纸上的指示。
• Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it -- I got more." 汤姆在他的写字板上写了几个字：“请你收下吧，我多得是哩。”

3 scribbled   

v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下

参考例句：

• She scribbled his phone number on a scrap of paper. 她把他的电话号码匆匆写在一张小纸片上。
• He scribbled a note to his sister before leaving. 临行前，他给妹妹草草写了一封短信。

4 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

5 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

6 symbiotic   

adj.共栖的，共生的

参考例句：

• Racing has always had a symbiotic relationship with betting.赛马总是与赌博相挂钩。
• Engineering completely new symbiotic relationship is obviously not an imminent possibility.筹划完全新的共生关系显然是可能性不大。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

9 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

10 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

11 inhibits   

阻止，抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 )； 使拘束，使尴尬

参考例句：

• A small manufacturing sector inhibits growth in the economy. 制造业规模太小有碍经济增长。
• His bad English inhibits him from speaking freely. 他英语学得不好，这使他不能表达自如。

12 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

13 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

14 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。