This week’s reading in The Artist’s Way was about using money as an excuse. It’s one of the easiest excuses and the easiest to rationalize. I’ve heard it from other people. I think I’ve heard, “Money always comes first and everything else is second,” more often than I’d care to admit. Those may not have been the words, but the sentiment was there.

Money is great. Money makes life a little easier, but money isn’t everything. Money doesn’t have to take every ounce of your time and energy. The more money becomes the focus the more tired you become and the less you will enjoy yourself or do other things that you enjoy.

Pampering yourself was another theme this week. When I think of pampering myself, dollar signs tend to pop into my head. Expensive things that aren’t in my budget are what I think of first, like spa treatments and nights out on the town, but pampering can be small things as well. A new candle in your favorite scent that you’ve been denying yourself could make you feel pampered. Even taking a walk by yourself, especially if you have children, can go a long way to making you feel like you’ve done something for yourself and thus feel pampered.

Some of us aren’t wired to think of ourselves first and this week’s reading will be hard for those people. It feels wrong. It feels like the author is saying, throw everything else out the window and live only for yourself! We just can’t do that. Taking time for yourself, to treat yourself, and to pamper yourself even with small things can not only improve your mood and your art, but it can help to keep you sane as well. I’m not wired this way and this week’s reading was hard, but I do believe it to be true. I can’t and I won’t put myself first all the time, but I think I can manage to do something nice for myself every once in a while. I means more that way anyway.

Whether you believe in God, an afterlife, that life just ends, or that you’re reincarnated, you have a finite amount of time to live the life you have. When you get to the end and you’re looking back over your life are you going to regret the big things you didn’t do or the little things? So you never had the money to visit Scotland, but how many little things did you miss out on because what you enjoyed always came last? Spending time with your children, taking a long walk on a spring morning, sitting outside and watching the sun set, indulging yourself with some fresh strawberries, taking a long soak in the tub, listening to music and dancing around the living room like a fool; all these things are small pleasures that can be enjoyed for little or no money if you just let yourself come first for a few hours. Not everything takes money and often times we can find something fairly cheap we can treat ourselves to that makes us feel as good as something expensive.

Remember to pamper yourself from time to time and I’ll try to remember to do the same. On that note, I think I’m going to go take a long bath. I haven’t done that in ages.