Relative Something

Is it apparent that I don’t write as much about living alone? I am definitely noticing how the situation is feeling less significant for me. Part of me thinks that might not be all good. There have already been moments of frustration when a certain someone returns for a visit and my latest routine suddenly gets disrupted. What if I find that living alone becomes more appealing to me than living with my wife?

It that happened, I think Cyndie would gladly find space for me in the barn.

I don’t remember if I mentioned that Cyndie is coming home today for the weekend. It is supposed to be our final push to prepare our home for showing. I hope that goal is accomplished. However, I am detecting moments of feelings of insecurity as we get closer and closer to the reality of having our home of 25+ years sold.

Part of that is a result of not yet having actually seen any properties that inspire me as being potentials to meet the vision of our dream. If we don’t find a suitable place, after we sell this house, the teasing I have done about becoming homeless would turn into reality. My stoic front projects a readiness to deal with the inconveniences, but the little boy inside me feels more apprehension about the realities and the potential for extended duration.

They are just feelings. Feelings can be ameliorated.

I have less success managing my unconscious behaviors. I think I am clenching my jaw more lately. In the past, I have experienced bruising of my teeth from the pressure I exert. It can feel just like a cavity or other tooth problem. The tooth even becomes sensitive to hot and cold. When I am doing that, I’m obviously not relaxed.

I might be taking a calm walk on a beautiful morning, stopping to capture images that strike me, and at the same time, I am firmly clamping my jaw, without knowing it.

The day-job is in the midst of an extended period of amped-up stress, my chores at home exceed the capacity of my time and energy, and life as I have known it for a long time, is slowly being pulled out from under me, a little at a time. I clench my jaw.

I am also cognizant of the loss of my thrice daily endorphin fix from exercising, in the form of play amongst good friends that make me laugh. I am in need of some serious cycling time, both for the exercise and for the conditioning to prepare me for the annual week-long trip in June. The heavy load of the day-job responsibilities and the house renovations are conspiring to preclude access to pedal time.

One solution there, is to get organized enough to bike to work. Maximizes efficiency by providing exercise while getting me to the day-job. I just need to be sure I don’t need vehicular transportation during the day. Currently, that’s not something I am able to be sure about.

One simple solution: Live in the moment. This moment, right now. It’s all good. I smile, jaw relaxed.

Now it is November. The world’s populations has reached 7 billion people strong, with probably too many of those people thinking we are all in a handbasket on the expressway to eternal doom and gloom. But a little skepticism about our situation would appear justified.

There is just no denying the importance of perspective, in reference to the outlook most folks have regarding the status of our growing population. Compare how two people would parse the milestone of earth’s population reaching 7 billion, if one were from the most densely populated cities of India or the Philippines, as compared to the least dense regions of remote Mongolia or Australia.

In my situation, I am aware there are more people than ever before, (even though my household is now made up of less people than ever before), most often, as a result of the amount of automobile traffic on my usual routes. However, I still enjoy the space of living that allows me to survive mostly oblivious to the long simmering, and continuously growing threat of over-population of our planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.png

To me, the most extreme, yet obvious, way of presenting the reality of population growth is by a graph that depicts the number of people over time. If a person were to measure the precariousness of our situation based on the logic that we have adapted thus far, the graph is a great way to present the lunacy of assuming our brilliant adaptation over the last hundred years will apply to the next hundred.

Just like the exercise of repeatedly doubling a sum: 1 + 1 = 2; 2 + 2 = 4; then 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc. – …a line-graph of the results looks relatively flat for the first portion, but eventually takes a dramatic upturn. Nothing can ever be the same as it once was.

At the rate things are changing, making plans for events happening in the present, based on comparison to a same such event just one year ago, is becoming an unreliable reference. I know it frustrates those who pine for things to return to the way they used to be. Of course, that really only applies to those who were privileged enough to be in a dominant group, enjoying the fruits of success at the expense of others. Those who have endured years of discrimination share no similar desire to return to “the good ol’ days.”

I don’t expect this November to be the same as all my Novembers before, but I am growing less pessimistic with time, and I sense plenty of reasons to visualize the handbasket that I am in, as headed for wonderful things, with an added bonus of including more people than ever before. Feel free to climb aboard and join me!

Don’t be bashful. Form your features into a pleased, kind, or amused expression. Turn up the corners of your mouth. Smile.

If you are not in the grips of clinical depression, the simple act of smiling has the power to alter everything that comes after it.

You are more powerful than you give yourself credit for being.

Go ahead. Wield your smile.

Some days, you feel like a rock. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to feel heavy or unbalanced…

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Why does it take effort to see the positive in our world while the negative shows up uninvited? Maybe if I practiced being still and in the moment long enough to see, I would discover that there is no imbalance of negative over positive. In my experience of navigating the world without practicing such meditation, the majority of information that paints my backdrop is less than happy. It takes conscious mental exercise to re-focus the landscape around me to reflect all the positive that is ever-present, regardless appearances otherwise.

I’m afraid there is a significant amount of learned behavior that is responsible for my tendency to find optimism an effort to accomplish. I have many years of practicing fatalistic pessimism to overcome.

But hope springs eternal! Local football teams have signed new coaches. The days are getting longer. The dates for my annual June bicycle trip have been announced. We still have our house. There is food on our shelves. Gas in the car. Heat in our home. Clothes on my back. Family is healthy and free of strife. Love is abundant. We know peace that passes understanding.

Yet it is still an exercise to choose to know all that, over the dismay which presents itself without effort. I bask in the grace that allows me the luxury of doing so. I choose to focus on the unending love that inspires the good we enjoy throughout the entire world. It is always well within our grasp.

We are empowered with the ability to make that conscious choice.

I woke up a couple of days ago and something seemed out of sorts. You know that sense you have before actually getting sick? There is nothing specific to point to that feels wrong yet, but you can still tell. “I’m getting sick.”

At that point, I imagine that if I had a microscopic view of myself, I would be able to see why I feel the sensation of getting sick. Before we even break out with that sore throat, or cough, or fever, there are things going on at the cellular level that we can detect, even though we can’t specifically identify.

On Sunday I became so tired in the afternoon, I fell into a totally involuntary nap, sleeping even though I had no intention to do so. My appetite has not been there at meal time, yet showed up with a vengeance at odd hours. However, Monday morning, I had no reason not to go to work. Since it was Monday, and I was going to work, I packed for the usual morning soccer games. Soccer felt like I’d aged a decade since the last time I played. Again, there was nothing specific to point to, but I felt slow, extremely tired, and enjoyed little success.

This is the time when I feel our self-talk can have greater impact. If I were to keep telling myself that I was getting sick, my body would easily oblige me. Conversely, I choose to focus my attention on the fact that days are passing and no specific symptoms of illness are materializing. Microscopically, my cells are doing what cells do to fight off any tiny invaders and everything is performing the way it is supposed to.

I believe there is a very fine line between getting sick and staying healthy when it comes to the regular onslaught of minor viral infections that we face on any given day.

For not feeling quite my normal peak healthy self lately, I must admit, I still feel pretty good. Nana nana nanna na.

Regardless my best intentions to help myself by making conscious choices to be positive about life, there has never been a day when I have successfully contemplated the multitude of different ways things could work out for the best. I don’t seem to have any problem imagining a myriad of bad outcomes. Would it be possible to get myself to actually believe in a high probability of many different positive results coming at me in any given day?

I would be trying to counteract all those formative years as a Minnesota sports fan.

For now, I will be satisfied with looking out for at least one possibility that everything’s gonna be alright.

It’s Friday! There are plenty of ways this could be a really great day. I intend to remain open to the idea.

Dragonflies symbolize renewal, positive force and power of life in general with a sense of self that comes with maturity

Have you ever tried to actually figure out what is true? Truth is not quite as cut and dried as it is made out to be. I feel differently about a lie. Lies aren’t likely to occur without intent, and as a result are much easier to define. Truth just happens. Truth just is. Ah, but truth is more often referenced against falsity. Falsehood can probably be argued just as much truthfulness. When a person is intending to cover up something, the action is rarely referred to as creating falsity and much more likely to be identified as an act of lying.

Which situation gives rise to the greater fear: telling the truth, or telling a lie? Why do either one produce fear? Look at some of the things we are afraid of… appearing uninformed, drawing undesired attention to ourselves, revealing a deficiency of character, being hypocritical. Lies might be employed in avoidance of  such fears, but isn’t it possible that summoning truth could serve one equally well here?

I’d be lying if I said I knew.

I keep coming across another snippet from Gary Zukav’s meditations from Seat of the Soul (because the little flip book in the bathroom doesn’t get flipped very often) that refers to fear in a way that resonates with me…

From page 70:

All souls are tempted, but an individual with limitation of consciousness will find it more attractive to walk into the magnetic field of fear because it would not recognize fear for what it is. It would accept it as something else, as something that is normal to Life.

I often hear people discuss things that to my ears appear related to their fears, but their conversation isn’t framed with any recognition of it being a fear. It comes across as more of a frustration, or anger, or even indignation over details of a given subject (often fueled by news reports which so deftly propagate and then harvest the attention). They don’t even realize where it is they are dwelling, within their field of fear. It is, indeed, accepted as normal to life. It is a drama to which they are attracted. It becomes an addiction of sorts.

Turn off the news. Practice recognizing where it is that you allow your thoughts to dwell. Whether or not it ends up being a place of utter truth, it can certainly be a place other than one of fear.

I can’t think. My head hurts. It seems I have developed a cold. Where does thinking go when it disappears?

I find it particularly annoying to be sick with a cold during the spring or summer. It just doesn’t seem logical and it doesn’t feel fair. Is that one of the reasons our parents teach us that life isn’t fair?

Last night it struck me that something I have been trying to develop in myself related to my desire to strive for optimal health, is something that I didn’t have the benefit of witnessing within my family growing up. I want to send positive messages in my home with my words. There was a fair amount of sarcasm in my family that became a pattern I developed and executed all too well. Speaking positive messages did not come naturaly for me. It takes a fair amount of practice and a concerted dedication to enact changes in patterns that have been developed over the most impressionable years of a life.

I don’t recall ever specifically feeling any doubt that my family loved and supported me. That familial love was present in a way that I intuitively sensed and the nonverbal message of it provided plenty of comfort. But the verbal messages were coded. It was rarely as simple and clear as, “I love you” or “You are the best!”

Verbalizing positive messages to those with whom you live and work just may be the most dramatic positive influence you can create for the least amount of energy. Even when you are miserable and totally drained from having a cold, you can speak of love and appreciation. And the reward is doubled, because both the person speaking and the person hearing such a message are rewarded with positive, healthy energy.

I invite you to make an effort to listen to the words you speak and the messages you are sending to those closest to you this week. See if you become inspired to develop a more conscious pattern of verbalizing positive messages that will seed better feelings for both yourself and the people around you.

I have often shared my belief that putting our focus on the positive aspects of situations eases our path toward achieving positive outcomes that we ultimately desire. This mindset is not something I held or practiced until the most recent decade of my life. I have far from mastered the art.

Twice in my life I have voluntarily left gainful employment due to my dissatisfaction with the circumstances, even though I had not established any alternative. Ultimately, both times I discovered better alternatives. But back then, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now, from the luxury of my hindsight, I have no doubt whatsoever, had I understood my mental capacity at that time to impact my life, the process would have brought me much less anxiety.

If thinking positive by an individual proves beneficial, then consider the possibility of numbers of people focusing positive impressions toward one person. Let’s give it a shot. Take a moment today to visualize positive outcomes for Pam this afternoon and beyond. Then, as long as you’re at it, give yourself a dose of the same medicine. Maybe we’ll tip the balance of things positive. I like the thought of that.