Tag: Alternative

Progress

It’s funny how when we make plans and goals, that sometimes we just get distracted. Ok, I get distracted. I’m not going to project that same behavior on anyone else. Life happens, time slips away from us me, and I’m too tired, or unable to focus on what I really want to do, because I’ve spent so much time doing other stuff.

I had a plan last night to write for this blog. I had some extra time and I chose to spend it with my family. I got to lounge around the house with my partner and my kiddo. Hung out with the pets, sat on the couch and watched tv. It was pretty great. I could have stayed at work, despite having nothing going on but noisy construction that was making it hard to think and breathe. Instead, I went home to nurse my migraine and had to justify the wage loss for doing so to myself, for much of the afternoon.

I felt like I was letting my boss down (who was also out sick) and the rest of my team. However, I was not going to be effective given the situation, and I had to come to terms with that. I did all the important stuff, but then I bailed. In my haste, I misread my calendar and was late to a meeting this morning, but that was a separate thing. Coming in early is a challenge when you have a small one, especially when it’s several times a month, and it changes often. Anyway, I digress. The point is that 1) I didn’t do my stuff yesterday because I was distracted and 2) leaving work early was awesome, but also I felt guilty for leaving.

I often feel like a juggler, spinning plates constantly. It’s truly exhausting to keep all the plates moving, while not losing my freaking mind in the process. In the attempt to simplify my life, and improve the quality of it, I feel like I need to revamp my 40 day challenge. The meditation element has to stay, as it’s the catalyst for the whole challenge in and of itself. I’ve been sort of accidentally exercising lately anyway (thanks to tracking it on my watch), because I’ve been doing a lot of stair climbing, chasing after people and animals, and we’ve been going out and doing stuff.

For instance, we walked around the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden on Sunday, and I chased my kiddo around the meadow for a long time, between viewing the beautiful artwork in the park. I easily walked 10 miles that day before, during, and after our outing.

https://walkerart.org/visit/garden

Moreover, this challenge is supposed to be challenging, yes, but it’s meant to be a blessing and a way of drawing in more life and love, while lessening the feelings of burden and obligation. I love writing, and someday I will make a living doing it in some way. But writing everyday has been a difficulty, primarily on weekends. So I’m no longer requiring myself to write every single day.

I will commit to 4 days, and keep the 500 word minimum. I think that will keep me feeling energized about GETTING TO wrote, rather than feeling distracted and HAVING TO. I love my family, but they make it difficult to focus, because I’m so easily distracted. And truthfully, I want to be with them. I’m at work much of my day and I find it hard to spend as much quality time with them as I want to, because it’s very much a get up- go to work- come home- cook dinner- go to bed- start over tomorrow life in this modern world. I am working on simplifying though, and creating a better work/life balance. It just takes time to materialize. I will get there. And it will be marvelous.

Until next time. Thank you for reading.

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Equalizer

alone man person sadness
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As I have said many times over the last many years, pain is the great equalizer. Yes, each of us has a pain threshold that differs from the next person. However, when we experience it, it shows us really what we’re made of. Some people live with chronic pain and others experience acute bouts of it. The point is, that everyone will at some point feel pain in their lives. It could be emotional pain, or physical, but nevertheless, it will happen. That is what I mean by “equalizer”.

The Buddha, while he was still Prince Siddhartha, witnessed pain, suffering, old age, and death when he escaped the palace and went into the village. He realized in those moments that we will all experience these difficulties. After this eye opener, he was determined to find the path out of suffering. Without getting too in depth, the path to ending suffering is ending attachment. That doesn’t mean that one doesn’t care. Quite the contrary. Instead, it removes the need to attach yourself to the outcome. It compels us to all be compassionate, but not attach our feelings and mental state to how things turn out.

This is a tall order when we are pack animals, with deep ties to our friends and families. Even more so when we are so distracted by social and traditional media outlets. We are constantly presented with opportunities to be outraged, shamed, heartbroken, saddened, and so many more emotions. And in many cases, we should be those things and try to alleviate the sufferings of others. But, damn. It’s exhausting. It’s really difficult in the modern world to care, or to care without attachment to the things we care about.

When people around me are hurt or upset, it’s my natural instinct to apologize for their suffering and to offer to help in some way. In many cases, that is all we can do. Even if there’s nothing practical that can be “done”, I still put out the offer.

Today has been the great equalizer in our home. There has been a lot of pain in the last 24 hours, both physical and emotional. It’s hard to say what will make it better. Currently, there’s nothing to bring ease to the sufferings. But as my friend said, we will figure it out. We always do. I don’t know that I’m able to find 100 more words for this entry. Tomorrow is another day, I suppose. Now, to remove myself from the outcome.

Thanks for reading.

 

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Busy?

Are we really busy? Or are we distracted? Overwhelmed with all of the things that are expected from us? Straight up, burnt out? And more to the point, what can we do about it?

Last night, I had best laid plans to come home, get settled, and get writing for my 500 words and take a moment to meditate and reflect. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I had every intention of sitting down while my kiddo was eating dinner and my partner was otherwise occupied. What my rational brain did not take into account were the plans of other people. The kiddo wanted to play bubbles in the yard and call grandma. The dogs needed attention. Dinner needed cooking. Meltdowns happened when it was time to come back inside after bubbles. Downloading with my partner had to happen. By then, it was bedtime and even that was a challenge with yet another, more massive, meltdown.

It seems with our busy lives that there’s just no break. The days run together and it’s hard to catch your breath. But what if it wasn’t this way? Would we just simply fill our time with more crap to feel like we are productive? I know that I’m often at odds with “free time”. I feel like I’m not “doing” anything and therefore wasting my finite time. However, what are we really doing with a lot of this time? Yesterday, when I could have been writing at work, I was online shopping for some dress clothes and a couple things for the kid. I was also compulsively checking my email for no reason at all. I wasn’t waiting for anything important. Just kept checking, about every 30 minutes. Also, I scrolled facebook like you wouldn’t believe, or would you? Social media, while often a necessary evil to this modern world, is responsible for hours of our lives disappearing in a blink of an eye. How many times have you been mindlessly scrolling to realize that it’s been an hour, or possibly more? I can confess that it happens to me regularly. Looking down at my phone for countless minutes, only to suddenly come back to life with half my day wasted. It’s such a time-suck.

Now, this isn’t to bash on the FB, because that’s certainly easy to do. But rather, it’s to highlight that we need some things to be happy, healthy, truly productive humans. The first being, needing time to decompress. We are so stretched in our daily lives with the pressures from work, home, kids, partners, and much more. There must be a few moments each day (gasp!) where we disconnect with outside forces and focus inward. Next, we need to simplify. If it’s committing to fewer obligations in a day, so be it. We need to accept that we are human beings, and while marvelous creatures, we simply cannot keep going at the pace in which we are. It’s burning everyone out at record speed. This makes us grouchy and short tempered. It makes us unable to make the myriad of decisions we need to, with a clear head. And finally, we need to slow it all down and refocus on what is important. Yes, we all make excuses that if this or that doesn’t get done by whatever time, some consequence is looming. However, I posit this question in all sincerity. What happens to US, to our psyche, our souls, if we no longer take the time to appreciate the world around us and the people, places, animals, etc in it? What kind of life is that? Is it even one worth living?

If we do not have the deep genuine connections with those around us, what is the point? If you read a previous entry of mine, THIS IS YOUR LIFE. This is what we’ve got. We have the chance to make it everything we’ve ever dreamed of, or we can work ourselves into the ground, completely missing the beautiful experiences we could have had. And trust me when I say that I’m not coming at you with this shit from my ivory tower. I’m a working stiff just like everyone else here. I clock my hours and get paid what my employer thinks I’m worth. I’ve got bills and a family that need my attention all the time. I’ve got pets that need feeding and care. I’ve got a car that needs repairs all the freaking time. This is not a judgement. It’s a plea. The collective conscious needs to change from this scarcity mode of operation. We need to find the joy in everyday so that we are not just existing to pay bills. I certainly didn’t come into this life thinking that I was going to work to pay bills and then die. Fuck all that noise. I’m not on this planet to slave away, are you? I’m on this Earth to learn and grow, experience and change. I’m learning this more and more as I get older.

Join the revolution. It’s beautiful here.

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Mulligan

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Without making excuses, I didn’t do all the parts to my challenge yesterday. I didn’t write and I didn’t meditate for 5 mins. More like, 30 seconds before I fell asleep. So, I’m back to day one of this adventure. I’m glad that I didn’t make it to day 37 and have to start again, but I suspect that this is going to be a theme for a little while. However, even then, what difference does it really make? I’ll likely have to start over more than just this time, in all reality. Since, busy life and forgetful.

That brings up an interesting issue, that’s kind of been a theme today. Starting over, while totally annoying, isn’t always a bad thing. You get to perfect whatever it is and get it right. You get to try new ways of doing things, in hopes of learning and growing. You get to experience a deeper relationship with yourself and possibly those around you. Notice how I say “get to” instead of “have to”.

Take a look to your left right now, and then to your right. Look up, down, all around. THIS is your life. It’s the life you’ve currently got, and only you can change your circumstances to change your life, if you aren’t happy. There’s nothing else, this is what you’ve got. Sometimes that’s a really harsh reality. I’ve been there, recently. Trust me when I say accepting your station in life blows… hard. The good news that it’s never, ever too late to start over. Yes, starting over bites the big one too, sometimes. Nobody said it would be easy. Yet, in many cases it’s so fucking worth it. If it turns out that this new life you’ve created blows too, guess what? You can have another do-over!

Looking back, I’ve lived at least four distinct lives since my late teens. Each era seems like an entire lifetime in a jar, and in many cases that is exactly true. However, about every 7-10 years we totally ARE different people. All of our cells have been reborn at least once, and we are simply older and wiser, theoretically. We are shedding our old selves in slow motion almost. It’s really a cool thing about the human body. But more to the point, even our brains are reborn about every decade, leaving us to think and be new with each passing era in our lives. Hopefully we are able to learn the lessons available to us throughout this crazy journey of continually reinventing ourselves. Unless you’re like me, of course, and have to learn these lessons repeatedly and always the hard way.

Intellectually, I know better, but in real life, learning my lessons the first time, or without great challenge has been easier said than done. Though, looking back, I have to say that I welcome the struggle. In the midst of the bullshit, I can say I’d rather not, but it’s really important to me that I have struggled. Not so I can play the victim for the rest of my days, but rather so that I can know my own strength and my abilities during times of hardship. It’s important to me that I earn my stripes. I know that isn’t for everyone, and I accept that some people are just not the same as me.

Regardless of where you find yourself on the hardship spectrum, good luck to each of you on your paths. I wish you learning your lessons in a way that’s meaningful to you.

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The Universe

When I searched Universe on dictionary.com, this is what came back.
*NOUN
(the universe)
  1. all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. The universe is believed to be at least 10 billion light years in diameter and contains a vast number of galaxies; it has been expanding since its creation in the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago.

When you break the word into it’s corresponding parts you get the following:

*Uni- one; having or consisting of one.

*Verse- denoting an area of activity or interest or a section of society distinguished by a particular characteristic. <there are many definitions of verse relating to poetry and writing, but they simply don’t apply to what I’m trying to discuss in this post.>

What does Uni- Verse really mean though? One place. One activity. Singular. The only one. There are some theories about multi-verses, but honestly I just don’t know enough about that sort of stuff to posit an educated response to them. So for the purpose of this entry, I am going to focus on One-Ness.

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As a spiritual being, I call our Source, or what other people refer to as God, The Universe. It is the place from which we all came. The startdust, the energy, the “matter” from which we are all part of and connected to, was found in the cosmos before we were created. If you believe in Intelligent Design, or the Big Bang… we were all born out of “nothingness” and created into “somethingness”. What we do with this precious life we’ve been granted, is entirely up to us to create.

What do you spend your time creating? I choose to create a life filled with love, harmony, gratitude, respect, dignity, protection, service, honesty, tenacity, diligence, and so many more things. All of them are positive and focused on being the best person I can be, and doing everything in my human power to teach and guide and love those around me. I am constantly left in awe of the human spirit and tenacious ability to overcome adversity. We are such marvelous creatures and we can do anything. We simply have to believe it, and stop at nothing to do it.

The singularity, the one-ness that we all share is often called the collective conscious or humanity. But I believe that it is so much deeper than that. I genuinely believe that we are all interconnected. By the stardust and the energy that flows through us, we are connected with everyone and everything that has ever been created. We are part of the earth, the trees, the fish, the streams, the air, the cosmos. We are quite literally interconnected with all things, seen and unseen in the universe. It’s until we recognize this, that we feel separate, alone, and isolated. Until we realize that we could not be more wrong about being “individuals”, we will never truly reach our potential.

The potential for us to reach enlightenment, heaven, salvation… it’s the infinite, ultimate achievement. Or is it? Obviously, these questions are unanswerable by just a regular person like me. But it’s something to consider, without dogma attached. We need to consider how we behave on this plane of existence, and not concern ourselves with only the after-life, though. Because what we do here is what determines after-life in many faith traditions. You’re not guaranteed salvation if you’re a dick to people on earth, sorry to say. You will never reach the pinnacle of consciousness if you suck as a person. You cannot buy your way into heaven, not by tithing, not by playing lip service to the whatever. You have to be a good person to gain access to the good things we are promised by religion. If you don’t subscribe to a religion, that’s cool too. You’re still not allowed to be a dirtbag, a jerk, or any other sort of jackass. What you do on this planet affects us all. We are all interconnected. We are in this together, forever and ever. Remember this, and take it to heart. Everyone will be better for it, yourself included.

Thank you for reading.

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