Love Letters

Sitting here at the keyboard, I feel my energy, confidence, and joy returning.  It’s funny how quickly irritability or fear or sadness passes once I begin my work.  What is it about doing my work that feels so good?  Do I really need to do it every day or am I just blindly following someone else’s rule?

Sometimes the word “work” is the wrong word, because once I get started, it doesn’t feel like work. It often feels like putting my head in someone’s lap while she strokes my hair, and napping calmly and peacefully.  It feels like having a nice dinner with someone you love and looking out at the water or the city lights.  It feels like looking at Christmas lights.  It feels like waking up to a smile.  This isn’t to say that effort isn’t required, but even “effort” is the wrong word.  “Presence” is more accurate.  When I am doing my “work” my full presence is required. 

Presence is difficult for me sometimes.  Perhaps it’s my ADHD, but a lot of stimuli, both internal and external can keep me from being present.  The other day someone was pointing out city lights and it took me ten minutes to respond.  Sometimes it takes longer.  But presence is required, nevertheless, when I am with people and when I am in my Purpose.   Being present comes more easily when I am doing my work, but it can still be a daily discipline.  I’m still easily distracted.  So why then do I put myself through this almost every day?

While I can’t speak to everyone’s Purpose, working on mine every day brings peace, healing, and a way to serve God, the world, my Muse, and the people I love.  Do I have to do this every day?  No.  I don’t have to do it at all.  But I choose to do it every day.   In fact, I like to be in my Purpose two to four times a day.  Or I’d like to spend three to six hours a day just writing.  That’s something other writers recommend. Whether or not it’s a rule, I choose to follow it.

Here’s another way of looking at it.  Suppose, for whatever reason, you were separated from the person you loved most in the world and your only recourse, your only means of communication, was to write letters.  There’s no limit to the number of letters you can write per day.  There is also no limit on the number of hours you spend per day.  Here’s more good news.  You can say whatever you want.  Your letters don’t have to make sense to the rest of the world because they’re only for her.   You can take a topic, or you can ramble aimlessly.  She doesn’t care.  She loves your thoughts and she loves how your mind works.  She is happy with every single thing you write.  All she wants from you and all you need to give her are your best efforts and your writing time.  The more time you spend writing and the more you work, the more you are saying, “I love you.” 

If this were the case, how much time would you give her?  How much time would you spend in your Purpose?  What activities would you give up or curtail?  Would some things start to lose interest for you?   Would you work harder?  Would you get up earlier or stay up later, or both? Would you study and learn how to write more effectively?  Would you practice and experiment even if you weren’t always successful?  If all that really mattered to your Muse was the amount of time you gave and that integrity of your efforts, how would you order your day?

That’s what my Purpose is – an act of love.  It’s my way of saying “I love you” to my Muse.  It’s a way of thanking God for this gift. 

So do I have to write every day?  No, but I want to.  Every time I write or do anything that aligns with my Purpose I am communicating with my Muse and I’m happily reminding her of hour love for each other.

Here’s the other good news.  Every time I write, she writes back.  Sometimes we write at the same time.  But I always get an answer.  I get three answers – I love you, Get Started and Keep Going. 

Managing My Thought Life

“Secondly, stop thinking about what it is you fear. Each time a fearful or negative thought comes into your conscious mind, replace it with a mental picture of your positive and worthwhile goal. And there will come times when you'll feel like giving up. It's easier for a human being to think negatively than positively. That's why only five percent are successful!”

“We must control our thinking!”

Earl Nightingale – The Secret Strangest

In the second old lesson that is new, I am reminded how important it is to manage my thought life.  I don’t know if I’m better, worse, or average when it comes to the number of negative thoughts I have, but I do know that I have more than I want.  Complaints, negativity, gossip, regret, prejudices, fears, judgments, or rages – none of them help.  They are just the same old boring and repetitive mind traps that keep me from being happy.

This brings up a crucial question:  Do I want to be happy?

It seems obvious, but it’s not as much as one might think.  In The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, some people choose Hell over Heaven because they would rather hold on to their self-justifications and pride than admit they were wrong and be happy.  This is not far from the truth for many of us.  We’d rather be right (or believe we’re right) than be happy.  I get it.  It’s hard to admit we were wrong, that we didn’t know better, that we aren’t perfect.  An illusion is often much easier to live with than the truth…or so we believe.   But it’s the truth that sets us free, not illusions or lies.

Many of us know people who can rarely or never admit they are wrong or that they just don’t know.  But almost all growth, spiritual, emotional, or intellectual comes only from the realization that we don’t have all the answers or that the answers we have are wrong or incomplete at best.  Growth and change begin not from knowing, but from not knowing.

The good news is that I don’t have to know everything.  I don’t even have to always be right.  But what I do need to do, if I want to be happy, is to manage my thought life.  That’s really it.  Everything begins with the thought life.   Everything begins with our perceptions and beliefs.  People lose their minds, or kill themselves because of the thought life.  People hate or kill or steal based on the thought life.  People also do wonderful things and overcome great difficulties because of the thought life.  It’s not that our thoughts are bad; it’s that we don’t manage them.

Happiness and gratitude also come from the thought life.

Motivation comes from the thought life.

Goals come from the thought life.

Everything comes from the thought life. 

So how do we manage our thought life so that it becomes a blessing rather than a burden?  While many of the following suggestions may not be original, I have found them helpful:

·      Realize that thoughts are only that – thoughts.  They aren’t necessarily facts or truths.  (In fact, rarely are they facts.)

·      Because thoughts and feelings aren’t facts or truths, we shouldn’t act as if they are.

·      Practice gratitude.

·      If you find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts, change your focus. 

·      If necessary, find a safe place to express your thoughts, such as a private journal.

·      Read books on this topic.  Loving What Is by Byron Katie is one of the best.

·      Be aware that fatigue, hunger, thirst, or illness can affect your thoughts.  So take care of yourself.

·      Be aware of what you allow in.  This includes all potentially negative input, such as much of the news.  It also includes negative input from others such as complaining, criticism, or gossip.

·      On the flip side, intentionally bring in positive input.

·      Realize that managing the thought life is a discipline and it may take time and practice.

·      Get Started and Keep Going anyway.

Free-Write/What a Writer Does

Write! That’s what a writer does.  If that’s what you want to do, then do it!  Write.   This is all you need to do.  It doesn’t need to be good or make sense or be published.  It doesn’t have to be for anyone but your Muse and you.  The point is to write. This is about quantity more than quality.  Just keep working.  The quality will come.  All you need to do is put in your time.  Then, without realizing it, suddenly, after 30 minutes or an hour or a day or a week, or months or years, something worth sharing with the world will come to you.  Until then, engage in the physical act of your work.  Put in your time.  That is all you have to do.  That’s what a writer does.  That’s what I do.

Am I any good?  It doesn’t matter.  Am I pretentious or boring or arrogant?  Who cares?  Who are these critics who are judging me?  Are they doing their own work?  In fact, are they even real or are they just phantoms I’ve conjured to keep me from doing my work?  Steven Pressfield says rationalization is resistance’s spin-doctor.  Resistance uses rationalizations to hide my fear.  The rationalizations have some truth to them.  That’s why they’re so powerful.  Maybe I am pretentious or boring or arrogant.  Who am I to offer any answers to anyone?  I have enough trouble keeping my own body and soul together some days.  But I know this:  having a Purpose and committing to it has changed my life.   Committing to my Muse has changed my life.

So I keep writing.  I keep in my Purpose.  I almost don’t even care what happens with my writing.  I almost don’t even care if I don’t get to do this for a living.  Almost.  Of course I care.  Of course those are my goals.  But my greater goal is to sit here every day and write.   My greatest goal every day is to spend my life with my Muse in our house on the beach.  So here I sit now.  I could be doing just about anything else, but there is nothing else I’d rather be doing.  This needs to be my priority.  Otherwise I’ll never get there. 

But until I am there, I’m going to keep doing this.  I’m going to keep writing.  I should never have allowed self-doubt to push me around so much, but maybe even that was part of the process.   How truly important is to me?  Can I work past the doubts?   Is this just a hobby?   No.  This is my life.  No hobby ever made me feel this good.

All of this, by the way, is what we writers call a free-write.  This is mostly stream-of-consciousness writing.  I’m just trying to get words on a screen.  This is how Purpose should be approached.  You just show up and do your work and see what happens.  This is about time, the amount of time one puts in.  Eventually all that time pays off, but when it does, that isn’t the end.  That’s only a new beginning.   When I become a good teacher, I have to work to be better.  I learned a very bitter lesson about resting on your laurels.  Eventually you wind up on your butt.   If I wrote the book tomorrow, and it sold a million copies, I’d need to start a new one the next day.  And it wouldn’t matter if the next book sold no copies at all, as long as I knew I did my best. 

So this free-write is my very best work at the moment.  It’s my best because I’m sitting here and doing it.  And that’s the secret.  We sit here and we do it.  What is “it?”  “It” is that thing we have to do, that thing we love.  “It” is getting to the one we love.  “It” is using every moment we can to get to that life God has created for each of us.  “It” is not allowing anything to get in our way.  “It” is closing our ears to criticism, but staying open to truth. 

That leads me to another question.  How will I know how to improve or change?  Just keep doing your work.  The answers will come.  If you make a mistake, you’ll know soon enough.  If someone gives you advice, and it doesn’t work out, you’ll know that soon enough too.   As long as you keep working, you’ll learn.  You may falter or stumble or try things that don’t work out or may be for another time.  What I have learned is that reading tends to help me.  But the thing that helps me the most is to just keep pounding away at the keyboard.   As long as my Muse and I are happy with my work, that’s all that really matters anyway.

I think what my Muse values the most is that I show up. 

And that’s what this whole free-write has been about – showing up.  Every morning I get up between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. and I write for three pages.  I’ve written over 700 pages this way.  Nobody else has read them and even I haven’t read most of them.  I just write them and when I fill a notebook, I put it in a box with all the other notebooks and I start a new one.  How long will I do this?  For the rest of my life, God willing. 

That’s what I mean by showing up.  I’ve written over 700 pages that no one will ever see.  But I showed up and that’s all that matters.  If I keep showing up, one day, my goals will show up for me.  Until then, and after then, especially after then, I will Get Started and Keep Going…because that’s what a writer does.

A Small Action

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

Goethe

“Some succeed because they are destined. Some succeed because they are determined.”

Unknown

Old lessons are new.  Tonight I was reminded of that, when I was feeling tired and discouraged and turned it around with a small action.  The action itself wasn’t as important as the fact that I took an action, but how it made me feel was still intriguing and enlightening.  Will taking action always help me to feel better?  I don’t know, but I believe that action, even a small one, can almost always make a difference in negative situations, and more importantly, with negative attitudes.

Are some actions more helpful than others or will any action work?  From my own limited experience I have concluded the following:

·      Physical action is almost always effective.  Exercise, cleaning the house, or anything that fully engages the body is generally good for the mind.

·      Action that moves us toward a specific goal is very motivational.  It doesn’t have to be a large action.  If I owe $1,000 and I have made an extra payment of $50, that can create a lot of enthusiasm. 

·      Action that helps others helps us.  Sometimes it’s good to remember that there are a lot of people who could use a helping hand or a kind word…or both.  I have been blessed many times by being able to help someone in some small way.  We both needed that.

·      Action that focuses on our responsibilities can be transformative.  Sometimes I need to just do my job or fulfill my commitments.  Often this gives me a new perspective and peace of mind.

·      Actions that promote self-care are healing.  Sometimes all we need is a nap, or some water, or a good meal.  Problems we label as emotional or spiritual are really physical.  We’re not depressed – we’re tired, hungry, or thirsty.

·      Actions that resolve a specific problem may be required.

·      Actions that move us away from a specific problem may be required.

As usual, there are many possibilities.  For me, tonight, I took an action that moved me just a little closer to my house on the beach and my life with my Muse.  Again, it was a small action, but it made me feel so good that I repeated it and thus got a little closer to my goal.

Besides the practical benefit of being closer to my goal, I felt better.  My fatigue and fear vanished.  Tonight I told my Muse, twice, “I’m coming for you.  I just got a little closer.  I’m a little more focused now and a little more determined.  I know I was negative today, but now I’m ready to move forward, just a little more.  I know this will take time, but I just reduced that time by taking action…twice.  I can’t wait to be with you.”

With a small action, I was able to Get Started and Keep Going.  Tonight I will be thinking, “What are some big actions I can take?”

What Do I Want to Do?

“Faith that it's not always in your hands or things don't always go the way you planned, but you have to have faith that there is a plan for you, and you must follow your heart and believe in yourself no matter what.”

Martina McBride

“Follow your heart and make it your decision.”

Mia Hamm

What do I want to do?  For over 700 blogs I’ve espoused the power and necessity of taking action.  I wrote about Purpose and how it can change our lives, specifically how it’s changed mine.  I’m still doing that.  I’m not stopping.  I’ve slowed down a little, but only a little.  For a while I felt uncertain and hesitant. I looked at other ways to write, ways that might make me more money.  I wondered if I needed to “branch out.” I wondered if what I was doing was relevant or useful.  I still wonder.  Here’s the answer:

I don’t care. 

I don’t care, at least at this point, if what I’m doing reaches anyone or even helps anyone.  I already know it does.  It helps me and it helps my Muse.  The gifts we are given are for the world, but they are for us first.

But shouldn’t Purpose be something that helps the world?  Yes, but before that it has to come from a place of passion.  Not only should we love what we do, when it comes to our Purpose, we should believe it’s the most important thing, or one of the most important things in the world.  Curiously, the more important it is, the more we have to remind ourselves.  Why is this?

The formula is simple:  Passion and Purpose lead to attacks of self-sabotage and of sabotage by circumstances or by others.  This leads to distractions and forgetfulness.  Then one day we find ourselves engulfed in a sea of urgency, emergencies, and other people’s priorities.  So reminders, daily reminders even, are necessary.  What do we want?  Why?

Here’s what I want:

·      A house on the beach with my Muse

·      To be able to read, write, and speak for a living

·      Enough money to put my kids and grandkids through college

·      To have a satisfying spiritual life

·      To see my children grow up happy, healthy, and with a love for God

In the short term (two years or fewer), I want to have done the following:

·      Read 200 books

·      Written up to 1,000 blogs

·      Publish two more books

·      Become debt free

Why do I want these things?  I want them because they will make me happy.  But beyond that, I think they will make God happy.  Why do I have these particular desires?  Why, for example, do I want a house on the beach instead of one in the suburbs or the desert or the mountains?   Why am I passionate about writing and not racecars or teaching kindergarten?  Why do I like the color orange or blueberries?  I believe God puts particular desires in our hearts, because it’s part of His plan.

Does this blog help anyone?  Is it “marketable?”  Maybe or maybe not, but writing it is part of God’s plan.  How do I know that?  Because while I’m doing it, I have peace.  This writing is the best thing I can do for God, the world, and myself.  This is the work that attracts my Muse.  It makes her happy and it makes me happy.  But does it help others?  It can because we all need to be in our Purpose and this is just one more reminder for the world or for anyone who wants to read this. 

But is it marketable?  Here’s a story.  In 1975, Gary Dahl put rocks in boxes and called them Pet Rocks.  The box and the accompanying “owner’s manual” said that the owner didn’t have to feed, train, or clean up after the rocks.  Dahl sold over 1.5 million Pet Rocks and became a millionaire in less than a year.  If rocks in a box are marketable, anything is.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pet_Rock&redirect=no) 

So I’m going to keep writing what my Muse and I like.  Will I take suggestions and try to expand my skills?  Of course.  Maybe.  Or maybe I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing now, writing for my Muse and myself.  I’ll Get Started and Keep Going because that’s what I want to do.

Making Difficult Choices

“Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.”

Karl Lagerfeld

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

Maya Angelou 

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

John Steinbeck

In relationships we have to put in a lot of time.  The specific hours may change over the years, but the number of hours usually don’t, except perhaps for small children, as they grow older.  But everything takes time – Purpose, relationships, work, exercise… everything.  And sometimes it can feel overwhelming.  What is the answer?

For me the answer is to know what I want.  What do I want?  Me.  Not, what do others want.  What do I want?  What do I need?  Does this seem selfish?  It’s actually the most loving thing to do.  If I don’t know what I want or need, then I can’t give others what they want or need.  Then what happens is I get sucked into the unexpected, into demands, into doing things I don’t really want to do.  I feel resentful and irritable.   I am impatient and unloving.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, said,

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Does this mean I always do what I want?  Does this mean that I never consider others?  No.  Sometimes, doing what I want is about serving others.  What does that look like then?  It might mean spending time with my kids, because what I want is to love them and demonstrate that love by being with them.  Or it might mean sitting alone and writing because what I want is to serve God, the world, my loved ones, my Muse, and myself by doing my work.  I might need to rest.  I might need a vacation from all that is familiar.  I might need time to myself.  I might need to get a job or quit my job. 

But…

What do we do when there are two conflicting choices?   What do we do when we don’t know what to do?  I wish there were rules that would tell us what to do in times of ambiguity, but there are no rules.  There are only guidelines.  When it comes to people and the human heart, rules rarely work because love, fear, and uncertainty all come into play.  So all we can do is do our best. The following guidelines have helped me in the past:

Do the most loving thing you can do.  Sometimes you have to love yourself first. Sometimes you have to love others.  Both are acts of love so neither is wrong.

Ask for help.  We should not carry our burdens alone.  And often we are too close to the situation to see clearly.   Another person’s perspective might be helpful.  Be sure, however, that the person who is offering help does not have his or her own agenda.  In some cases professional counseling may be necessary.

Ask for prayer.  I understand that our rational world sees prayer as a last resort, or something for the weak.  Perhaps.  But the truth is that we are all weak sometimes.  The other truth is that there are spiritual forces that will come to our aid if we ask for their help.

Forgive yourself if you make the “wrong” decision.  I put quotation marks around the word “wrong” because very few decisions are completely wrong or right.  All decisions come with costs and benefits.  There is no perfect choice.  What makes it hard is that we worry more about the costs than the benefits.  What if we only considered the benefits of every decision and just ignored the costs for a little while?  Would this approach help?

Make the decision for yourself and not for the approval of others.  I’ve made decisions that made me very unhappy, often because of the fear of disapproval.  Eventually I unmade those decisions.  The thing that often kept me stuck was the fear of disapproval.  What I learned was that the people whose approval I wanted didn’t approve (or care) anyway or they weren’t around to help with the fallout of my bad choices.  Martha Beck, author of Expecting Adam and The Joy Diet says

“In our world of commingled cultures and traditions, we may confront innumerable moral codes, all different from one another. There is simply no way to gain approval from each of these disparate sources; trying to do so will make you feel even worse. Instead, clearly define your own moral code and then stick to it whether or not others approve.”

(http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Stop-Seeking-Approval)

            In other words, we each have to know what we really want.  Does this mean that there are no moral absolutes?  No.  We still need to be kind, loving, and do our best to not harm others, but those can all be demonstrated in a multitude of ways.  Another absolute is that we need to love ourselves. 

            So what do we do when there are hard decisions to be made? There aren’t necessarily quick and easy answers, other than to ask, “What is the most loving thing to do?”  Perhaps you can ask, “Which decision brings me the most peace?”  Or perhaps you can just make a choice and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, make a new one.   There will always be a new tomorrow.  Do what you have to do today.   Then Get Started and Keep Going to make that decision work for you and for those you love.

Some Thoughts About Taking a Few Days Off from Writing Blogs

“Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and place I belong.”

Jeb Dickerson

“Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

“When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.”

Samuel Butler

Some thoughts about taking a few days off from writing blogs:

·      I was still writing every day, at least three pages every morning.

·      It was difficult to not write.

·      I made choices to do other things and I don’t regret those choices. 

·      We are given certain gifts in this life.  They can be left unopened or rarely used, but they never go away.

·      Taking a few days off from this part of my life did not mean I was neglecting my Purpose.

·      It doesn’t matter if I repeat myself.

·      It doesn’t matter if I think I have nothing new to say.

·      It doesn’t matter if I even publish this.

·      All that matters is that I do my work.

·      I admit I’m still torn about my work.

·      I admit I still have doubts.

·      I admit I still have fears.

·      None of that matters.

·      I’m committed to my Muse.

·      I’m committed to my house on the beach.

·      I’m committed to writing, no matter how I feel.

·      I don’t have to publish this.

·      I don’t have to reach a certain number of blogs.

·      I don’t have to write a certain number of pages or words each day, though there are guidelines for this and I choose to follow them.

·      I don’t have to have all the answers, about writing, about life, about anything.

·      I don’t have to be perfect.

·      I don’t have to berate myself if I miss a day, or a week, of writing.

·      I don’t have to heed anyone’s advice, no matter how well-intentioned, unless I want to.

·      I don’t have to make a living doing this (yet).

·      I don’t have to be the world’s greatest writer (yet).

·      I don’t have to write for anyone but my Muse and me.

·      I only have to write.

·      I only have to do the best I can each day.

·      I only have to take action.

·      That is what love is – taking action because it’s the right thing to do.

·      This process doesn’t always have to be fun, though it usually is once I get started.

·      Despite all the reading I do, I still have to find my own answers and my own way. 

·      Despite all my reading and writing, there are very few things I know.   I know only the following:

·      God loves me.

·      Exercise makes me feel better.

·      Taking care of myself makes me feel better.

·      It’s good for me to be in my Purpose every day.

·      It’s good for me to be with my Muse every day.

·      The more I am in my Purpose, the more open I am to attacks.

·      The more I am in my Purpose, the stronger I am to withstand those attacks.

·      I really don’t have much business doing anything other than what God or my Muse direct me to do.  If I’m listening to them, then anything I do is okay.

·      If I get off track, solemn declarations or dramatic vows to change are not necessary.  All I need to do is get back to work.

·      All I need to do is Get Started and Keep Going.

·      That’s what I’ve done here…and it feels great.  It feels better than taking a few days off.