When working towards simplifying life, it’s easy to forget to take care of certain things. Relationships, for one. And the quality of your relationships directly affects your well-being.
Remember to be honest with those closest to you, and honest with yourself. What are you trying to achieve? And why? Knowing your reasoning, and being able to communicate it, will go a long way towards easing your transition into a scaled-down lifestyle.
The week that passed was a long one, I’m not going to lie. There was a fourteen-hour car ride to Florida, and that was a bit exhausting. Everything before that wasn’t as restful as I would have liked either. Nonetheless, hear are some things that I spent some time with this week.
What I’m reading: Tip of the Iceberg by Mark Adams. Just cozying up to this book as the weather is getting cold. Thinking about this past summer in Alaska, and what the future may hold.
What I’m listening to: Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9. Also known as the New World Symphony, this makes me feel like it’s Thanksgiving. I enjoy this recording from the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra.
What I’m spending time on: Dog training.
My 60 lb. boxer is nearly seven years old, partially blind and deaf from an invitro stroke, and ultra-hyper. Breaking him of some bad habits will take a good deal of time, but I’m certain that he and I are up to the challenge.
Other things of interest:
“Watching a creature die—one who is the last of its kind—is something I hope never to experience again. It felt like watching our own demise.” – Ami Vitale
This blog is shipping. It’s a continuous reminder to me to get the work done. I’m at a point where I can now write every morning. I write here, and I write in my other media (at this time a novel, which I started during NaNoWriMo, but which has been a holdover).
Work completed isn’t much until we get it out. Really, it isn’t completed until you put it out. And it’s scary to put it out. There are times when I’d rather not see the finished product.
I do some work in improvisational acting, and that’s instantaneous shipping. That’s getting up, creating a scene (doing the work) and performing it in front of an audience (shipping), all in one moment. Terrifying!
But doing that, it’s helping me here. It’s helping me everywhere. Because in improv, as in any other work, it’s okay to fail. Maybe one project lands flat. Flatter than flat. Just put it in the dungheap and move on.
Seth Godin has a graph of shipping that looks like this:
This is specifically for the publication of a book. But it applies to any artistic medium. The Y-axis is the joy you feel for the project, and the X-axis shows time passing with each milestone. I think data point 6 is even lower than what’s shown because fear can take hold. That resistance.
But it’s so important to ship. To accept that fear. That fear is a gift. It’s your body telling you that what you’re doing may very well be important. So don’t stop now. Accept the gift, and get your idea out there.
I think some of the things that make this world so amazing are the people who go out and live life like no other. Take for instance Leon McCarron. Contributing writer to Adventure Magazine, author of such books as The Land Beyond and The Road Headed West, he set out after University on a bike ride halfway around the world. Then decided to keep traveling.
According to McCarron:
“There was a time when explorers traveled to mark the blank spots on the map—but now, in the digital age with fast, inexpensive transportation to once-hidden corners of our world, there’s far less call for flag-planting.
Instead, I see the modern frontier of adventure as storytelling; using immersive, adventurous travel to uncover new ideas. Adventure also applies on a smaller scale, one that’s accessible for all. It can be a daily practice in which we choose to do something different, something that creates a new experience—and that can happen as easily in London as it can in Ladakh. Adventure is everywhere, if we know where to look.”
The challenge is to create those new experiences. Look for the miraculous in your everyday life.
Here it is, December 2019. Have you accomplished all that you wanted to this year? I know I haven’t. Sometime later this month I’ll do a personal check-in, showcasing some successes and failures of the year.
I recommend you do the same.
Try to think back to the resolutions you made on New Year’s last. Then, you can set them aside. Resolutions tend to be thinly-veiled attempts to make us live the lives we think we should have.
Really, just be honest with yourself over what worked and what didn’t this year? And ask yourself why? Maybe you’ll find 2020 is a time for new beginnings, or to recommit to the things that you really enjoyed in 2019. Either way, if you start thinking about it now, it won’t come as such a shock come January 1.
It’s been three years since I’ve become a vegetarian. I’m often asked why. No, it’s not because I was chased by a killer turkey.
I had toyed with the idea before. When I was younger, twelve maybe, I tried to go vegetarian. I didn’t receive much support from my family.
But the reason behind it was that I felt guilty for eating an animal that had died just so that I could eat it.
There’s a branch of Buddhism that sends it monks out on pilgrimage. They are graciously welcomed into houses, and allowed to partake of any meal that the family is providing. However, if the family slaughters an animal to celebrate the visiting monk, the pilgrim may not eat of it, as it was killed explicitly for his arrival.
In much the same way, I decline to eat any meat. Of course, no animal was killed expressly for me. Yet, the animal was killed with the intention that someone would purchase and eat it. So I refrain.
It’s easier being a vegetarian now than even ten or fifteen years ago. Beliefs that were on the fringe not so long ago have come to the forefront, and even current fringe beliefs are generally better accepted by the public. So it’s a good time to be a vegetarian.
And here it is, my Black Friday edition of the Weekly Rundown. As no one will be reading this today I’ll go ahead and post at 2 am. Good morning!
This Black Friday I’m taking REI’s suggestion of getting out into the wilderness. #OptOutside. I’m up in Pennsylvania, hanging out with the Amish. No, really I am. I’ll put up some pictures later this week. But here we go!
What I’m reading: Not Dracula! Finally finished it. After finishing it, I spent some time with Austin Kleon’s Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad. I’ve had the book for a while but hadn’t finished it. I dug it out while putting my notebook together, and figured I’d finish it.
What I’m listening to: Audiobook version of Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. I listened a lot of the way up to PA. The author’s first book for adults, we have occultism and Ivy League, homicide and mystery. I’d read at least one of Bardugo’s Grisha books before, and this one has much the same flow and tonality; if a bit darker.
What I’m spending time with: Routines. If you’ve read this week you’ll notice that it was a theme. I decided to fix my routine earlier in the month, and as a result I had a few thoughts that popped up. Four posts later, I’m not sure I’m done talking about routines. But that’ll be for later entries.
Other things of interest:
In case you don’t believe me about my skill, here’s one example…
…and it’s one of my better sketches. But, as I always say: Fail again, fail better! 😉
So, you have a routine that’s working for you. Or maybe several routines that get you throughout your day, or your week. You’re not in a rut, and you’re mindfully going along. The routine’s in place, and now you can avoid any discomfort where your routine is concerned.
Wrong. The discomfort may just be what you want.
If the discomfort is Resistance. As Steven Pressfield said of Resistance, “We experience it as an energy field radiating from work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”
One of the sad things about a routine is that Resistance can use it to discourage us from doing real work. We issue excuses about it not being a part of the routine. We quantify and qualify our responses. We demur.
However, if we’re mindful, and honest, we’ll notice whether or not it’s the work that we need to be doing.
Let’s say you are stuck. You’ve found yourself in a rut that you can’t seem to get out of. Maybe it’s work; maybe it’s a relationship; maybe it’s everything. What do you do?
Like all good programs, the first step is admitting the problem. And you’ve done that now. You have a problem – it’s a rut.
The next step gets harder. Part of solving it is being mindful throughout your day.
The other part is taking an honest inventory of your life. Notice where your attention is pulled. Do you have trouble performing certain tasks as opposed to others? What are you phoning in? What doesn’t really interest you?
If you say it’s your entire job, then maybe it’s time to find something else. But most people tend to enjoy certain aspects of their work, if not the entire situation. Find ways to rekindle that interest.
The same can be true of relationships. Some of the interactions may not be working, but there are probably parts that you still really enjoy. Be honest with yourself.
When we get in a rut, we can put blinders on. We try to ignore where the problem actually is, and focus on the fact that we’re just not feeling particularly happy with our situation. But we have to be honest.
Take a good, hard look. And then evaluate.
There’s a flip-side to routines: complacency. Complacency breeds a feeling of settling. Settle enough times, and you find yourself in a rut.
First of all, it’s easy to find yourself complacent in your situations. Routines can be used to auto-program your life, and then you can just set the cruise control. How to prevent this? Be mindful.
Being mindful in your day-to-day will create moments of miraculous significance – even in the mundane. Being mindful will illicit feelings of joy, and sorrow, and peace. Complacency means you’re looking at your situation and you’re okay with it.
Peace is looking at the situation and knowing that it’s exactly where you are meant to be.
Michael's Musings 