Got the time?

Take a few moments.

They are yours for the taking. That itself is the point.

When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day? George Carlin

All the time is yours. You might be trading it to your boss for pay, or sharing it with your friends, or keeping it to yourself; but it is all yours.
Are you making the best of it? Are you giving it to people/events that is not returning a dividend?
If so, stop pouring time into something that you don't want. It makes no sense and it is maybe the greatest source of frustration and unhappiness in your life.
It is time to change from "going through life" to "growing through life", and lack of time is the worst excuse.
Do it.
Do it right now.
Make that decision.
Move forward, and remember this mantra: "The question is not 'Can I do this?', but rather 'How can I do this?' ". That distinction will allow you the freedom to dream great things. It's time to be the hero of your own story.
Decide it. Dream it. Do it.

Invite me, I love adventure.

Maarburg
Current meatspace coordinates:
N21 21' 18.7 W157' 51.5 Elevation: 340ft

The Next Step

In the last Post, we left off with, “what are you going to write now?”
Have you given that some thought, or are you comfortable in your hamster wheel? What are you going to write next?
What? You don’t know?

I see a lot of people that are sleepwalking through life. I guess, if that’s OK with you. It is not OK with me. Not any longer.
There is something special about life, precious. Our time here is short, yet we act like we are immortal. This shining moment, twinkling brightly only to fade. Life is like a snowflake, melting in the palm of your hand. Beautiful and briliant and short lived. Too many people fail to see that shining star for what it is and then only when its near gone.

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. -Bertolt Brecht, The Mother, 1932

It would almost be a crime to stand there with that perfectly formed crystalline structure in you hand, and be staring off at something else as it melts to nothingness.
Now is the time to look at the dreams you might have had, or even dreams that you currently have and decide if they are worthwhile. Are they? Are you worthy of those dreams? Are you willing to stand up and claim those dreams as your own. Will you put behind those dreams a plan, an unwavering drive? Are you willing to commit? There is no tomorrow, if you postpone these dreams, you risk them melting before you. Action is required. Now. This step from dreamer, do achiever takes less effort than you think. Do something different. Choose a change. I know, I used the word ‘change’. Big word. Lots of people toss that one around too. Here’s a little something to ponder. You can either act, or not act. Either choice is yours, and the outcome is what you’ve effected. The story that you’re changing is yours.
Got that?

My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible. All are of no value unless they are followed by action. -Og Mandino

Good. Since we’ve determined that what we can do is change what we do now, how do we go about doing that.? It can’t be as easy as it sounds, can it? Like most good questions, the answer is ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Sorry to all those rigid black/white thinkers out there.

Let’s take an example and play with it.
The Job.
Let’s pretend (another word for practice), that your job is lame. It’s not what you want. For whatever reasons; the pay, the work itself, the boss, the cow-orkers, un-fulfilling etc etc.
For me personally, changing jobs is terrifying. When we have to make a change of that magnitude, it’s easy to take the easy way out and decide that the change itself is more terrifying than the reasons that caused you to consider the change in the first place. It’s easier to choose the evil you know over the fear of the unknown. That is the absolute best way to write a boring and disappointing book. So what do you do? You need to find out what will work. What will make you happy? The same mechanism that you used to determine that the book you’ve been writing isn’t the book you wanted to. Feelings. Feelings are emotional responses, and most times they’re a good indicator. Listen to them.
Use your feelings, and a little imagination to see what will work. Think about yourself doing a different job. Doesn’t matter if you think you’re qualified for it, but try to have some sort of reality check. If you’re 6’7” and want to be a Horse Jockey, you might need a reality check. Imagine yourself, first person, doing this new job. How do you look, act, how does it make you feel. Does it feel right? Imagine telling a new acquaintance what you do for a job, does it feel good to say it? Can you tell people what you do with a sense of pride and accomplishment?
If so, you have a new chapter to write. If it doesn’t feel right, then it simply is not. Remember, Wrongness can be defined by anything that is Hard and or Ugly. (Credit) If it’s not right, move on. Try this technique over and over till you find something that fits. When you find that thing, be it a job, or a person, or a hobby, new car, new home; whatever, you will know that you are on the right path. You will know that your book is going to be a better read.
Something you can feel proud of.

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. -Denis Watley

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia. -Unknown

Maarburg
Current meatspace coordinates:
N21 21’ 18.7 W157’ 51.5 Elevation: 340ft

What did you write yesterday?

I would like to invite you, dear reader, to take a moment and take an honest look at your life?

Are you happy?
Are you moving, consistently towards a goal?
Does your life have meaning?
If you were to die in six months, would you be proud of the life that you've lived?

Did you answer "No." more times than was comfortable?

Faber est suae quisque fortunae / Every man is the artisan of his own fortune. (Appius Claudius Caecus)

It is easy to forget, and I will even propose that some of have never known this simple truth.
We, individually, are authors. Everyday we write. Sometimes this writing is simple and clean, leaving both author and reader with a sublime feeling of satisfaction and achievement. More oft, the writing is at odds with itself, the surroundings, and even author and reader. Both are left confused, frustrated and wanting something else, anything else. This story, this Book.. is your life. Every moment you are creating another line in the book that will become the story of your life.

Take another moment right now, and look at what you wrote yesterday.

Read it aloud, how does it sound?
Do you feel happy with it?
Are you feeling proud?
Do you feel that, through the course of the day, you accomplished something?
Or was today simply the same characters doing the same thing they did before, perhaps despising it just a bit more? That gnawing feeling of apathy squashing the hope that was once there.


You are the author of your Book.
You.
Not your mother.
Not your father.
Not your church.
Not your boss.
Not your spouse.
Not your friends.
Not society.
You and you alone, write every word. Even when you hand the pen to someone else, it was you that made that choice.

Not happy with that? Not happy with how your life is? Look to yourself first, as every word was written by that pen in your hand.

Now, since you've written this all in pen, no eraser is going to change the plot as it has developed so far. I have investigated, quite thoroughly, the option of time travel. Not finding any reliable sources that can provide time-travel guarantees, we need to cross 'fixing the past' off our options list. Compounding that is the whole "Grandfather Paradox" that has me a bit concerned. We very well can't undo or redo the things that have happened. The future is out as well. Since it is not yet here, it cannot be changed. That leaves you with the now. The only thing you really have is right now. This bright moment. Right now, decide if you liked where your Story is going or you want to change the rest of your Book. You hold the pen in your hand right now, wet ink slowly pooling at the tip. The question of the day, the question of your life, is "What are you going to write now?"

Things to ponder:
No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. -Turkish proverb
I have smelled death and stared it in the face as the last glimmer of consciousness faded from the eyes of a man whose head I held in my hands. My greatest fear in life is not death, but waking up some morning ordinary and predictable. -Jeffrey M. Deuel
In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia. Unknown
It's not how much you have, but what you do with the time you have....Gandalf in Lord of the Rings
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives. -A. Sachs
Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Do not go gentle into that goodnight! -Dylan Thomas
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -Ferris Bueller

Maarburg
Current meatspace coordinates:
N21 21' 18.7 W157' 51.5 Elevation: 340ft