I’m once again in final layout week with the magazine, so this will be short since I have to jump right into work.  Three days ago I posted on Facebook “I have ten 12-16 hour days at the computer ahead of me for the February mag layout and now in between my shoulders is aching. I know it’s my chair, cuz it’s an executive lean back chair. I have lots of little pillows – what area of my back needs support to relieve the ache is between my shoulder blades?”  I got lots of comments back giving me different exercises to do stretch the muscles involved, one comment saying it may be related to a weak heart, but none answering my question. 

But, I got distracted by their answers and Googled “doorway stretches” that Jeffrey Stone suggested, and began doing some of those.  I do yoga every day, but find myself in my chair for sometimes 5-6 hours without getting up.  The exercises helped and I’ll do the doorway stretches from now on.  I liked those.

But half an hour back in the chair I got the ache again.  Because the problem lies with me spending too many hours in a chair that doesn’t support my back.  For half of each month, I don’t notice it because I am up and down and moving around.  But for 10 days a month I’m glued to the chair all day every day.

And why am I sitting in the wrong chair?  For 2 stupid reasons: (1) is that it’s my favorite chair to read in when I can sit back and put my feet up on the desk and (2) is that it’s such a large chair, to take it out of the office I’d have to move the astrology bookcase out of the hallway and that means unloading all those books to do it.  I can move a second chair into the office and sit at it instead, but that crowds my office space.

I Googled “office chair back support” and found a page that told me lumbar support was crucial.  I put a pillow at the lumbar region of my back and it immediately corrected my posture and made me sit correctly.  The ache went away.

But my bigger point here is that I asked a question and got distracted by all sorts of input and suggestions.  So distracted that it took me awhile to realize my question had not been answered.  In this case, the distractions were good, since I learned about doorway stretches.  But it made me think.

How often, when I am seeking an answer, do I let myself get so distracted by what others are saying that I don’t notice I’m not getting an answer to my question at all?  I’m sure it’s happened with salespeople, since that’s their job, to stick to their agenda (the sales pitch) at all costs, no matter what you’re saying.  Pretty soon it’s easier to just go with their story because it’s easier to follow, and that’s what they count on us doing.  Just going along with it and forgetting we had any questions about it.

Politicians do that as well.  If I think about it, almost anyone with their own agenda does it.  I mean, not my Facebook friends who answered my post, they were giving me good suggestions.  I’m talking about the times it happens that you don’t realize until later that it happened.

Like early on in church, I used to have questions and I got the ole bait and switch when I tried to get answers.  I learned working for attorneys about the importance of answering the question asked.  So now, when I ask a question, if the question is important to me, I will keep asking until it gets answered.

And I won’t let myself be taken off my own agenda and into someone else’s, and waste time on that.

Unless it’s something fun of course.

There’s always time for that.

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