Category: Writing

If It Makes You Happy

There’s a question in life that each of us gets to answer:

JulnJen-Blue

 

“If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?”  –Sheryl Crow

I was hiking this week and came across a California Conservation Corps crew. They were clearing brush near the trail. There were probably ten in the crew. I don’t know if they were volunteers, paid workers, or possibly working off community service hours. One thing was certain. None of them were enjoying the work.

I saw a lot of slouchy, half-hearted shoveling. They each looked exhausted. The brush wasn’t fighting back, but it was on the verge of beating this crew. None of the crew members embraced the joy that can come from working outside as the sun rises. I doubt if any were proud of the job they were doing, or the difference they were making.

They weren’t happy because they didn’t want to be happy.

Are you happiest at home? At work? Running trails? Sewing a quilt? Playing Call of Duty? Cooking dinner? Reviewing your finances? Gazing upon the ocean from the balcony of your stateroom? Sitting in quiet meditation? Mowing the lawn? Sipping a Mai Tai? Pulling weeds? Playing hide-and-seek with your kids? Cleaning your toilets? Watching your kids’ soccer games? Doing the dishes? Surfing? Playing guitar?

If you put this list in descending order from happiest to saddest, which activity is your happiest? Saddest?

I submit that each activity (and hundreds more) can be happy or sad, rewarding or frustrating, peaceful or angry, creative or boring. The activity and its location aren’t nearly as important as the one real determining factor:

The attitude we choose to bring.

There’s a question in life that each of us gets to answer:

What makes me happy?

The answer? The third word of the question.

Until you work on yourself, there isn’t much anyone or anything can do to make you happy.

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  –Abraham Lincoln

 

In honor of this, my 100th blog post, I thought I’d post a picture of two readers I have in my mind as I write each post.  It’s amazing to me that this photo is nearly twenty years old!  My how time flies.

 

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Fear can motivate. Fear can paralyze. It can save your life. Unfortunately, it can also control your life.

“…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” –Franklin Delano Roosevelt (first inauguration address, 1933)

Fear can motivate. Fear can paralyze. It can save your life. Unfortunately, it can also control your life.

Here’s a list of fears to consider:

  • Failure
  • Embarrassment
  • Public Speaking
  • Death (I’m pretty sure a lot of people fear the first three more than death)
  • Not Being Accepted
  • Commitment
  • Flying
  • Disappointment
  • Success
  • Fame
  • Responsibility
  • the Unknown
  • the Dark
  • New Experiences
  • Being Blamed
  • Heights
  • Snakes
  • Spiders
  • Sharks
  • Geese
  • Open Spaces
  • Anywhere but Home
  • Confined Spaces

I know people who have each of these fears. I have some of them, and I’m sure you have some as well.

Fear is generated in our Lizard Brain . That primitive part of our brain that keeps us alive while we’re thinking about other stuff. Our Lizard Brain means well, and only has our best interest in mind. It’s the center of our survival instinct. It will do anything it can to help us avoid the things we fear. Unfortunately, it’s part of our brain that we barely control.

One way to gain control of our fear is to discover, and admit, that it exists. That, and admitting our fears impact the things we choose to do (or not do). It may help to discuss your fears with someone you trust, or to contemplate them on your own. Either way, understanding your fears is the first step toward controlling them.

Consider a ten-year-old, standing in right field. He knows that he’s in that position because he’s the worst player on the team. Fly balls rarely make it to right field in little league games, so he’s safe out there. What happens when the ball flies into right field? What’s the first thing on that ten-year-old’s mind? Probably something like, “Please don’t let me screw this up and drop the ball.” His first thought comes from a place of fear. Did he catch the ball? Did he make the right play once he had the ball? Maybe, but doubtful.

Imagine the same player who knows he’s in right field because he’s the only player who can make the throw all the way to third base. He has a gun for an arm, and he may be the best player on the team. What’s he thinking when the ball flies into right field? “I can’t wait to get that ball so I can make the play.   We are going to stop this rally and win the game!” Fear isn’t part of the equation. Did he catch the ball? Did he make the right play? Probably.

Fear creates completely different experiences for these ten-year-olds. The secret is that this applies at all ages, in nearly everything we do.

How many of your goals are “off limits” because you’re afraid? How many potential goals are eliminated by fear (your Lizard Brain), before you even know about them?

How often is fear your first response? How often do you talk yourself out of something that’s outside your comfort zone? It’s easy to do…avoiding fear is a powerful motivation.

Start small. Choose one thing that scares you and go after it. Embrace the negative energy of fear and turn retreat into advance. Each time you do this, your list of fears will shrink.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Do it today!

 

 

Dreaming on Paper

That’s what writing is to me.

That’s what writing is to me. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing a blog post, a book on management (it’s finally finished!), or a fiction story. It’s all living a dream to me.

I rarely remember my real dreams. I may remember an emotion, a fleeting sense of happiness, or fear. But, what happened and who was in my dream? Rarely. I’m sure my subconscious mind has them all catalogued with a nice roadmap explaining their meaning. Writing lets my conscious mind tap into that reservoir, if only briefly.

It’s truly amazing to me how often I’ve started writing about one thing, and something completely different comes out on the paper (or Word file, as the case may be). Unlike regular dreams, I get to see these paper dreams unfold and take shape. I get to be the first person to read what happens in the story.

There’s something special about stories, whether fiction, non-fiction, or opinion. They are always there, waiting to be told, waiting to teach, waiting to challenge what we believe and know to be true. The writer finds a way to show the stories to us. I love uncovering the story.

Jeff Turner recently wrote a post about his writing and concluded, “I’m writing because I like seeing how my thoughts look as they pass through this medium of writing.  And I like standing at a distance and seeing how they look if you choose to allow them to pass through you.”

I couldn’t agree more. As our thoughts develop and pass through the written form, then into the reader’s mind, they engage, energize, and take on a life of their own.

When I opened my writing up for others to see, I learned, firsthand, the way one’s thoughts are received and shaped by others. Many times, someone will tell me about a connection or message they took from a blog post. The meaning they describe is often a bit different from what I had in mind while writing it. At first, I felt compelled to explain my thought process and help them see the “real” message. I quickly learned how wrong this was. The key was that my writing had caused them to think, to consider their own experience, and ascribe their own meaning. That’s all that mattered. Each person makes their own custom-designed interpretation.

They may also find nothing of value in my writing. They don’t connect with it at all. But, then they make a connection to their own thoughts. They take a moment to listen to themselves. They get to know themselves a little better. I’ll take that as a victory, even if they don’t connect to what I’ve written.

Our lives are filled with activities, schedules, distractions, movement, requirements, and reactions. Most of our own making. Cutting through all of this noise is the truest gift of writing—dreaming on paper.

Hourglasses, Egg Cups, and Grandma Anne

We know better. Some moments carry more magic than others.

Hourglass

‘Cause you can’t jump the track,

we’re like cars on a cable,

And life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table.

No one can find the rewind button, girl

So cradle your head in your hands

And breathe… just breathe,

Oh breathe, just breathe.

–Anna Nalick

Grandma Anne had a small hourglass in her kitchen. It was her egg timer, and I’m sure thousands of other kitchens had the same thing. In my Grandma’s kitchen, that timer was the magical key to making Eggs in the Egg Cup. The starring attraction was a perfectly soft-boiled egg. The proper dipping tool was a lady finger (toast cut into strips).

Forty years later, I could soft-boil some eggs. I could slice my toast into strips. I could find proper egg cups for serving. It wouldn’t be the same. I don’t have Grandma’s egg timer, or her loving touch.

Hourglasses don’t care about how time passes. Their job is only to measure its passing. Each grain of sand merely represents a moment in time.

We know better. Some moments carry more magic than others.

When I started this post, it was going to be about time passing through the hourglass and how it symbolizes our lives. We only get one pass through the hourglass (it’s glued to the table). We don’t know how much sand is left. We don’t know if our hourglass will fall off the proverbial table and shatter in an instant.

Nothing new there, but I had a sense there was something else, so I started writing to find out.

The image of Grandma Anne’s egg timer and lady fingers filled my head. I haven’t had Egg in the Egg Cup in forty years.  Grandma Anne passed away more than twenty years ago. Yet I can see the many breakfasts she served when I spent the night at her house. I smell the bacon.  I hear the crunching of the toast.

She taught me Yahtzee, and then Triple Yahtzee. I can hear the dice rolling around in the cup.  She folded a napkin in the bottom of the dice cup to keep the noise down.  She shared a lot of Grandma wisdom on strategic thinking during those Yahtzee games.

One thing is certain as the sand passes through my hourglass.  I get only one pass.  But I get to experience my memories as often as I’d like…even when I least expect it.  How cool is that!

 

Photo Credit:  Nick Valdovinos