Friday, July 30, 2010

Obsessed

I'm obsessed over people and their "once a days."

You know, people who do something every day, whether it be draw something once a day, take a picture once a day, run 6 miles once a day, write 3 pages in a journal once a day, etc. I believe there is so much to be gained from repetition, especially once you arrive at the place of really, really, really not wanting to do that one thing anymore. The act of muscling through the stall is immensely beneficial; to slam into a wall of uncreativity, unoriginality and cliched thinking, and to keep going, is where real magic happens. I want that magic.

Sadly, I've never had this kind of dedication. It's much easier for me to remove completely than to practice with moderation. If someone told me to eat 200 less calories a day, no problem. If someone told me to eat 2 bell peppers a day, we have an issue.

For a while I tried to write 3 pages a day in my journal; for a while, it was really awesome. Then I hit the wall.
I tried to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day...until the wall.
I tried to be better at keeping in touch with friends. Wall.
Right now, I'm drinking 3 Nalgenes of water a day, but I'm sure that, too, will find its way to a wall.

The walls will never go away. The question is how badly I want that creative magic, and how many walls I'm willing to blast through to get there. Til then, once a day away, people! I am learning from you and will someday join your ranks!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Happiness Project

Today this website is really bringing some great thoughts and ideas into my head and heart. (This website is the offspring of a book called The Happiness Project, but...the website is free. And totally accessible to me right now, in this very moment, without having to drive to a bookstore in the rain).

It's too easy to get bogged down in the "wants." A lot of my mental energy is spenting wanting for things, rather than hoping for true fulfillment...
like
unending, nonjudgemental love
real laughter
substantive thoughts
long-lasting health
and
experiences that will leave me a changed, better person.

These are worthy of energy and lost sleep. ...Not that losing sleep has ever made me a happier person.

Point being, check out The Happiness Project. Maybe if everyone did just one thing every day to consciously bring happiness to themselves or others, this place could be a whole lot different.


Here's my contribution to your happiness:

Roger and Benny. Best beacons of happiness in my life.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

New

It’s amazing the ways in which a person changes, subtly, day by day, with such restraint that the developing differences are as undetectable as hair getting longer or new freckles forming.

I just read through this entire blog.
I am different than when I first started writing over a year and a half ago.
I’m different but very much the same, very much more “me” in many ways.

I’m different externally – my hair is much longer, my body is trimmer and more mature. My teeth are more stained from many cups of hot tea, my hands and feet are more taken care of from a new found love of mani-pedis, my lips and the corners of my eyes are more wrinkled from hours and hours and hours of laughing.

The core of me is the same, only more me, more who I am meant to be. Often times, stripping away all the nonsense is the only way to grab hold of oneself, but there are certain phases of life when, to know oneself more completely, acquisition is what’s asked of you. New people, places, thoughts, emotions. Sometimes you have to put on to release. You have to acquire to know what to leave behind.

Other times, no. Other times, you have to sift through the murk of mental and physical excess and re-find yourself beyond the depths of the superfluous.

I have done a lot of all these things this past year, maybe more so than ever before, but it doesn’t feel like it. This year has been one of inevitable exploration, testing and growth, but its inevitability has rendered the journey almost effortless. Not painless or without its moments of scathing sorrow, but effortlessly there, happening, relentlessly tugging and speaking to me.

I have found bits and pieces of me in new places, and I have recognized myself in new people and ideas. I have shed layers of myself I thought I could never part with, and I’ve sloughed off edges and corners of myself that died long ago. Where there was a chrysalis at the dawn of this new decade, a new creation has emerged, standing over an open cocoon with gratitude and sadness, knowing things will never be the same, because things were never meant to stay the same in the first place.