Spring begs us to change: to clean, to sort, to pitch, to give away. And these impulses are not just for our physical environment and possessions.
Spring begs us to start over: to form better habits and pitch some old ones. A wonderful book by Gretchen Rubin called Better Than Before is a good guide for this process.
Intriguing to me were her profiles of four types of people (and how this affects our habit formation.) The four types revolve around the way we handle expectations, those inner ones we have for ourselves and the outer ones we have from other people.
Upholders: Keep their own inner standards and outside rules and expectations too.
Questioners: Keep their own inner disciplines and expectations but not those of other people – unless their rules/ideas seem logical and make sense.
Obligers: Meet the expectations and rules of others but struggle to maintain their own personal disciplines.
Rebels: Chafe at limits of any kind – their own standards or those of others.
Of course, many people are mostly one type, but lean towards another type also.
