Thursday, March 19, 2015

What I learned in my 59th year

For the last year I have begun a simple ritual that has transformed my energy, my life and my outlook, and made me an intensely happy person.

It takes five to ten minutes, 20 if you're ambitious, 30 if you're an overachiever.

I light a candle and turn on Pandora to my favorite mix of music. I breathe deeply for a few minutes and listen to the music. You can call it meditation but it isn't necessary to chant or get mysterious about it.

I write two paragraphs or a page in longhand, in my best handwriting with my favorite pen, about the things I'm thankful for that day. It can be anything from breakfast to eyesight to my grandkids.

In a very few days you'll begin to realize how rich your life is, how precious. A new optimism and energy will flow out of you. It increases as you celebrate the abundance of your life, and your own courage, strength and hope.

Over time you can combine it with other exercises like compiling a dream book of images and words that inspire you, something to look at for a minute or two every day. Think a little about what you want, what you want to accomplish, the kind of person you want to be.

Living intentionally is a very powerful thing. It has brought me a lot of optimism, confidence and joy.

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I am grateful for health, energy and an alert, inquisitive mind. I am grateful for a good night's sleep, good food, a good workout, and a warm pleasant day.

I am thankful for my clean, well-lighted place, the study that gives so much comfort and inspiration.

I am thankful for a job that allows me to write and learn, pays my way, gives me a daily practice of mental acuity in a pleasant environment.

I am grateful for the the comforts and conveniences of civilization, hot showers, clean clothes, a tooth brush, a home, a place of my own.

I am grateful for the opportunity to practice courtesy and spread light.

I am thankful for my lessons, failures and sorrows, for all they have taught me, for the unmined lessons of acceptance and discovery within their borders.

I am grateful for choice, for will, for the freedom to choose what I do and how I think, how I respond and react to what happens around me.

(Photo by nature photographer David Dennis.)
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This is the Way the Transformation Begins


"Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw, Robert F. Kennedy


This is the way the transformation begins.
It begins in me.
It begins now.
It begins with small incremental changes and shifts in attitude
it begins with positive action
failing forward
and suddenly I start looking at the world and my place in it in a new way. I speak differently and dress differently and project a different energy, and the world opens up like a glorious pink azalea bush, eight feet tall and blooming like mad.


photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com

Good morning!

An engineer builds a bridge and every bolt and weld has to be exactly right; every measure has to be perfect, or the bridge collapses or fails to take its place. Fantastically detailed blueprints have to be laid out. Impact statements have to be filed, sediment has to be studied, years of effort, months of planning, and a man-made marvel rises in the sky. Park somewhere and take a good look at a bridge, and think of all the skill and knowledge and hard honest work it took to create it. Consider how a few thousand years ago we were living in caves.

It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.

Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.

The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
Genuine happiness and success start with an attitude of abundance

Make it a daily practice to begin your day with five minutes of thankfulness. You can even do it in your car on the way to work. Do it in your own way, whether it's thoughtful reflection or a prayer or singing out loud, but focus on your rich, amazing, abundant life.

Feeling grumpy or resentful or worried instead of thankful? Change direction! Consider the incredible gifts you have--mind, body, spirit, senses, your family, your friends, your clothes, your car, and the breakfast you enjoyed this morning. By the standards of 99% of the world, Americans are incredibly, amazingly rich. You truly have no idea how richly blessed you are until you start thinking about it. Even the heart that beats within you and the lungs that breathe your air are an intricate and amazing miracle.

Some of my favorite movies are ones that feature a once-defeated character waking up to an absolutely new day: "It's A Wonderful Life," the various versions of Dicken's "Christmas Carol" and "Groundhog Day." How exhilarating it is for George Bailey to wake up and realize his life isn't over, it's just beginning, and that today truly is a brand new day.


"It's a Wonderful Life"

"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.