designing your rat park...

i read this article a million years ago, and the concepts in it inform my design choices as well as many of the other decisions i make on a day to day basis. here's a quick excerpt, but i can't recommend highly enough that you read the whole article (it's written by the brilliantly intuitive martha beck):

"[W]hat is this mythic Rat Park? And how might it relate to you? The term comes from a study conducted in 1981 by psychologist Bruce Alexander and colleagues. He noted that many addiction studies had something in common: The lab rats they used were locked in uncomfortable, isolating cages. Testing a hunch, Alexander gathered two groups of rats. For the first, he built a 200-square-foot rodent paradise called Rat Park. There a colony of white Wister rats found luxurious accommodations for all their favorite pastimes—mingling, mating, raising pups, writing articles for newspaper tabloids. The second group was housed in the traditional cages.

Alexander offered both groups a choice of plain water or sugar water laced with morphine. Like rats in other studies, the traditionally caged animals became instant addicts. However, the residents of Rat Park tended to "just say no," avoiding the drug-treated sugar water. Even rats that were already addicted to morphine tended to lay off the hard stuff when in Rat Park. Put them back in their cages, however, and they'd stay stoned as Deadheads."

soon after i read this article, someone treated me to a massage at a really lovely spa, and i remember wishing i could afford to go hang out there every day; it was such a peaceful, relaxing place. at home, i looked at my tiny studio apartment bathroom and felt totally discouraged... until i remembered this article, and promptly decided to turn my bathroom into as much of a spa it could be. i scoured until it sparkled, ditched old toiletries and any junk i didn't use regularly, and added candles, a new bathmat, & speakers for my ipod. it wasn't the most original idea in the world, but it was such good practice for me in the rat park creation process: how can i create a home that makes me sigh with joy when i walk through the door?

pay attention to how you feel when you walk into your home, or into various rooms in your house. do you feel warmer or colder? how do you feel when you walk into friends' homes? into work? into your favorite coffee shop or store? when you enhance your awareness of your surroundings like this, you can start to make those small, trim tab changes that make all the difference.