Balance

Calling again on the insight of M. Scott Peck, who listed balance among the four tenets of discipline, I am grateful for his elucidation and expansion on this distinctly essential virtue.

Balance is a thing to which I feel particularly sensitive. What is required to achieve it is different for each person, and its perceived importance varies as well. For me, it is crucial; I know that I like an eclectic array of interests to be served in my life, and that moderation is a great equalizer.

In general, balance requires strength, determination, discipline, and ultimately flexibility. Balance means maintaining a sense of evenness, but it also involves a capacity for adaptation to achieve such maintenance in a changing world. In order to stand on one foot on a hill in the wind, you have to be able to constantly make minor adjustments as the forces change. Similarly, in order to preserve balance between opposing forces in your life, you must support an equilibrium; it's not balance if you favor one extreme or the other; you have to accommodate each of them to a degree that zeros your scale, so to speak.

May you find peace and harmony :)

Bedtime meditation

While bedding down last night, I found my brain searching for a meditation to use to transition from evening activities to sleep, and "Now I lay me down to sleep" came to mind. I don't relate to the rest of that psalm, so I rewrote it:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray my soul to venture deep
For in my mind the truth does wait
To be revealed and emanate

I can't say I noticed anything upon waking, but I found sleep quickly and pleasantly :)

Autumnal Equinox

How fitting! Today marks the beginning of Fall, and I got a hankering to yank out all the dead foliage from a particularly dense part of my yard. I don't usually put much effort into the upkeep of the yard at my rental home, but now and then, I just can't help myself from tidying up a bit. As I worked, I realized the apt timing, and remembered that now is the season for shedding waste. I already made a Goodwill run last weekend, so I got a head start on my material life, and I got rid of a lot of used up matter today, so now I get to focus on dumping the ineffective thought patterns and counterproductive emotional processes that no longer serve me. Over the next three months, I shall strip down to my essentials, continuing to weed out my unnecessary belongings, as well as emptying my mind of impractical contents. That way, come Winter, I can repurpose my whittled possessions to better serve me, and rejuvenate those aspects of myself I have shunned or neglected, and become a stronger, more efficient Me by Spring, in time for the planting of new beginnings, before the Summer festivals for the fruits of our labors :)

Happy Fall!

World Gratitude Day!

How wonderful is that?! World Gratitude Day :) It's like an extra, global, Thanksgiving!

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has posted a short list of suggestions for ways to celebrate this glorious day, including making a "personal gratitude card" with 5 things for which you are thankful in your present life, and on the back, 5 things for which you will be grateful to receive in the future. What a fabulous idea! I second that recommendation :)

And of course, just be sure to say "Thank you" as you go about your day - to those who help you, to those you appreciate, to those who irritate you but thereby educate you, to yourself, and to Omni!

HAPPY GRATITUDE DAY!! :D

Gratitude - a little ditty

I previously re-wrote the "star light, star bright" poem to go from a wish preamble, to a thanks preamble:

(original)
Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have this wish I wish tonight:
[insert secret wish here]

(re-write)
Star light, star bright,
Shining star I see tonight,
I fill with joy at Omni's might
and give thanks for this tonight:
[insert cause for gratitude here]

But I've recently found myself making a new minor, but substantial, alteration:

(REDUX)
Star light, star bright,
Shining star I see tonight,
I fill with joy at Omni's might
and give thanks FOR THIS NIGHT
(emphasis added for this post)

Nice, huh? Yeah, I like it :)

"The end is the means"

I've been receiving a number of messages lately regarding end-centered focus. The concept is summed up in the quote by Judge Thomas Troward: "The end is the means." The idea is to begin each endeavor (or day, week, month, year, decade, life) with the end in mind, and then use that goal to guide your actions. This technique is also supported by learning theory: when it comes to teaching a series of steps, you begin with the big picture in mind, then teach the last step, and reward the student, followed by teaching the preceding step, adding the last one with the reward, and so on, always reinforcing the steps with the end reward, and reinforcing the learning by keeping the freshest steps at the beginning. With this idea in mind, I suspect you could work your way backwards, and solve all your decisions before you get out of bed.

I have heard this, and I understand it, but it has taken the repeated shoulder-taps to get me to start adding it to my work list. New ways of thinking take conscious effort to implement. I believe that I, too often, operate on a rather short-term basis, and not often enough, make decisions based on longer-term desired outcomes. This is not to say that I am highly impulsive (though, I certainly can be!), just that I frequently fail to effectively prioritize my efforts, and I'm thinking that this method might be quite helpful. With this technique, I could approach each decision point with a road map in hand, and in fact, I would likely run into less decision points, having set out with said road map from the beginning.

I've never been much of a planner - oh I have plans, I just don't usually formulate them very clearly - and it sounds like this could be hindering my efficacy. I have generally preferred the go-with-the-flow approach to life with minimal planning, since my early plans all fell through, but maybe it's just because I have never developed good planning skills. Perhaps the simple practice of starting each day with a goal in mind for how I want it to end will guide my actions naturally toward that outcome. And perhaps with continued practice, I can become more skilled at setting and achieving goals! My dad said his dad said, "A failure to plan is a plan for failure." I may just now be truly seeing the merit to that.

It is often said that the most successful way to manifest your desires is to visualize them, and that seems to fit perfectly with this line of reasoning, so it sounds like there's some pretty strong forces making a pretty strong case, and that I ought to make a pretty strong effort to reciprocate. So, with that, I would like this day to end with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment - which I believe will come from the completion of my commitments, and... let's say... five items from my to-do list - coupled with a glass of wine :) Well, here's one down!

Summer love

Well, it's official: July 5th typically marks the true beginning of "Summer" in the Pacific Northwest, and the weather forecast affirms it :) So, now that the sun is really beaming and the temperature is warm and pleasant, I get to really enjoy the rewards of being alive on this Earth! To me, growing up in this climate particularly, Summer equates to playtime. This is when I get out more, socialize more, laugh more, and smile more. I have set in motion plenty of personal growth tracks, and now, I just get to ride the rides, and sing happy songs :D

On a side-note, I've gone ahead and signed up for Google AdSense, so this blog will soon begin displaying ads. I am under the impression that they will be topic-related, so hopefully they won't be too obnoxious. In fact, I hope some of you actually find them interesting, as sufficient intrigue will bestow a monetary benefit to me :) I made this choice to start branching out on my sources of income, so that I might find sustainability while my main business continues its slow and steady growth. I trust you all will support my diversification, and I suspect there's a good chance you might also appreciate the personally selected links to specific products I believe you will regard as potentially useful.

I wish you all a bright and fruitful Summer this year - GO PLAY!!