10 new things

Is it even possible to find new things that you have never known, seen or heard before each day. Yes, but you have to be looking for them. They will not jump out at you.

For example. Today I was looking for a new image in the same magazine I have looked through hundreds of times and yes I saw something I had never noticed before.

Each day hundreds of things go past our eyes and most of them we do not give a second glance to. They become invisible .

But, if you practice looking you will develop the habit of wanting to look for more. You can see way way more than you think you can.

You can do the same with hearing. We blur hear. But you can practice hearing for little subtle changes in the world and you will hear them. this will give you sort of a sixth sense in that you are perceiving more than most people.

Try this for one hour and write down what you have seen or heard for the first time in your very same environment .

Right now right here I noticed that the word environment has an n in the middle that you really don' t pronounce.

Funny I never noticed that before.

shy people

People who say Oh I am just a private person and keep to themselves make me mad.

There is a difference between sharing useless information with everybody (blabbermouth) and sharing what you have learned that might help someone else.

The problem is you don't know what might help someone else at any given time.

Sometimes it is nice just to hear some good news from a friend because it gives you hope. Other times it is nice to share a burden they are going through, because it gives you a job of alleviating some suffering just by listening.

There is nothing that happens to anyone that doesn't at some time or another happen to us all and well we are all in this life together.

So I say horray for Facebook and twitter and blogs and letters and cards and all means of sharing life with each other.

We are sharing love and life and everybody benefits.

Everyone who is shy should think about this. Isn't it just a wee bit selfish to be shy. Give yourself away. You might have something I need right now.

What if

I like to play what if with my husband. We just think "What if everything were possible"

What would we do?

He has a hard time letting go of what he sees right in front of him. He is practical and methodical and that is great but it does have its limits.

What if you had a gun to your head? All of a sudden you can do what You thought you could not even attempt.

What if you had no job to go to every day . How would you fill your time? (he loves that one best)

What if you lost everything in a fire and had to start over??

What if you were in charge of a huge corporation and everything you said would immediately come into being?

What if every word you said led you closer or farther away from your dreams? What would you say?

What if you suddenly all your dreams came true? What then?

Asking yourself what if questions is a very helpful exercise to examine your goals. You might be surprised by the path this game leads you.

yesterday

Well I went to the studio and stared at the canvas and I got a new and way way better idea. I am doing French botanical drawings over my girls. It made more sense than the Small Paris Gardens.

I happened to have a group of them that I got for Christmas so I just drew them.

And yes I love the result. I did them over a painting I was going to paint over and they look so good I am going to do a whole show of them.

Every single time I get an idea for a show something else wants to be born.

Sometimes I think why even have an idea when I always do something else.

One time I was commissioned to do a mural for a church. I drew up a plan and they had three committee meetings to approve it. When I actually started painting it I got another idea and did that instead.

Well you usually do what you say you are going to do for a commission so I was expecting a lot of upset people/

Thank goodness they all loved the new Idea better.

Forget it

The goal is most of my days is to forget myself. By that I mean it is to be absorbed in what I am doing so much that I am not thinking about myself the whole time. It is wonderful when this happens and totally freeing.

When you are self conscious it is very confusing because you are really thinking" How does this look to others. "

that is why when you get in from of an audience to give a speech and you freeze up and are totally thinking of everyone looking at you and you can't focus on what you are saying. If you are only thinking about your speech then it is fun.

Every time I go to the studio and I do not have a foggiest idea what I am going to do the worse thing is to think about what was sold in the past and try and repeat that again. Whenever that temptation to do that is great is the time to do something else .

Today I have to get a painting done for a poster for a show. I haven't even started it and I don't know what I am going to do.

I have a plan.

I am going to my studio and stare the canvas till something comes to mind. I am not going to try and influence the process. I am going to sit there and look till I see it. Then I will paint it.

I will tell you what happened tomorrow.

The past , the present and the future

I tend to live in the present. I react to what is right in front of me right now. But I know that the right thing to do at all times is not react but be proactive. That is where you deal effectively with what you are facing right now.

The only way to be proactive is to be constantly aware of the past and the future as well as now. Our tendency is to just go on feeling well everything is always going to be the way it is right now. the old Buddhist saying "Be here now" is like that. But the problem with that is that you are saying that the past and the future are not important.

Why even have a past or a future if it is not important.

Proactive people use everything they have to make good choices.

The best and most wonderful thing about being proactive is no matter what you are going through right now you can be aware of the fact that there is something you can do about everything. You are not just floating in space but you can go in the direction of using all you know from the past and where you want to be in the future.

Its a very exciting way to live because we are not stuck no matter what happens to us.

I heard a sermon last Sunday about dealing with anxiety. We don't stick out head in the sand and not deal with problems but we do know who we can come to seek wisdom and help.

It is a fact that you can deal with upheavals a lot better when you are totally stressed out. Being full of anxiety blinds you to all the options you have available gleaning from the past the the future .

Proactive people are not spinning their wheels. They are moving ahead. Even though I know this, I have to practice it and that is what this blog is about.

Demanding the best

People don't demand the best anymore for anything. The bar is low for most People. Not demanding the best makes us comfortable with our own state of affairs. We like it when we are thrown into a group of people that aren't that bad. We hate it when we are out of our league, It makes us feel guilty about our own life so it is way way easier to hang out with the milieu. This is one small example of that.

I found that for my self not setting the table pretty when we eat dinner is way easier that putting some effort into it.

Since we have been blessed with guests staying with us of course I try harder than normal. The bad thing is I realize that my poor husband had to have sloppy dinners before they came.

I lowered by standards.

I am just now seeing all the ramifications of just not setting a pretty table before.

We did not spend a lot of time talking at dinner. Eat and go was the norm.

We started to live in our own worlds because of that and it actually was starting to make each other less important.

We had our work to think about.

Our priorities got out of order.

Eating became mechanical and I did not enjoy making the food. I would just throw something together.

Now we have the girls and they remind us to be a family and we enjoy our precious time together. I love to plan meals and eat with them. We talk about the food and each others day.

It is a very different experience.

something

this is something. Momentum is something we cannot stop. It is in us. WE always go somewhere. Even going back and forth we are constantly moving. We keep breathing and our heart keeps beating everything keeps going till we are dead. Then it is over for us here on earth. This seems like a given but I know for a fact that I must think about it every so often to get moving in the right direction. We do not have forever on earth and even more frightening for most is the reality that we do have forever after death.

Everything we do counts now for later. Very sobering fact. Every minute and breath we have counts.

This is also a freeing thought as we do not have to do anything really hard forever here.

You better make sure you know how to take care of later before it comes. Most people don't want to think about it but that is like living on a cliff that is falling apart day by day. Soon you will go off the cliff and free fall into infinity, so you better have a plan to not be in pain when you hit bottom. Do you have a parachute?? A real one. without any holes.

I mean really what else matters. Life is so short and then you die.