First and foremost, do well and be good for all. Think. Restrain. Steadfast. Fair. Serenity may follow. Or not, I can’t be certain. But is there serenity in irrationality? Excess? Cowardice? Inequity? Of course not; this I can be certain of.
Improvisational Problem Solving: Not, “That would work, but …”, rather “Okay, and how do we tackle (insert obstacle here)”.
Think. Restrain. Steadfast. Fair
Edison is credited with saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Process over outcome. Fail, learn, adapt, adjust.
Continue to fail upward. Ascension through failure.
We have a choice: fail to ascend or fail to ascend. Do not fear failure, it is necessary. Learn from failures and mistakes. Adapt and adjust. Grow. Fail again, but differently. Adapt and adjust again. Grow more. Fail yet again, but still differently. Repeat. Be courageous. Or don’t.
I could have mowed the lawn today. Perfect night for it. It was a perfect night to not do it too.
Linda Pauling says, “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” That is to say that for every one good idea there are many, many bad. Bear this in mind. Failure is a necessary and unavoidable feature of the process that every good idea emerges from.
Somewhere between birth and death is the answer to why we live.
Why we are alive is clear and was determined. Why we live? The explanation might be something altogether different.
Have I had a perfect day? Not yet. Do I want people to resent me for it, or offer me grace, forgiveness, and an opportunity to do better next time?
Knowledge (words) cannot hurt me. Only what I think about that knowledge can hurt me. No one controls how I think.
A generous act isn’t without cost, but it costs less than not acting at all.
I asked her if she would beat herself up over her performance. She said she might, depending on her score. Nonsense, I told her. She had tried her best. She was better than she had been a month before. She had worked hard for one month and had improved drastically. She had succeeded. She didn’t need ANY score to tell her that. The score can be of no consequence.
If the fastest runner in the world were to trip and fall in a single race, are they no longer fast? If they trip in the Olympics, what is the consequence? They do not stand on a podium, receive a medal, or hear their anthem. Would the adulation make them faster after the race is already completed? Is the fastest runner in the world content with their speed when they begin winning all their races? No, they still want to run faster; it was never about winning. It was always about bettering and pushing themselves. Always remember the goal: control what I can control, fail, and learn. Fail to ascend or fail to ascend.
Distortions are real. We need to remind ourselves how our perceptions are capable of being unreliable and in so many ways.
On mental reset:
- I don’t know what mental rest feels like. The mind never stops even when it tries.
- I’ve become better at dismissing thoughts re-living the past and pre-living the future. Acceptance is the key. I control neither. Learn from the past and acknowledge what is possible in the future, but work to allow neither to pull me out of the present.
- I don’t know that I have habits that clutter my mental space. I live minimally to prevent that from happening. No social media. Routines. Schedules. Reminders. They are all to clear the mind of clutter.
- Digital world: it can be overwhelming. best to shut it out more times than not. Restrain. How? Constrain time spent on news sites. No social media. Only consume visual media on the laptop, not the phone. Purposeful consumption only.
- Some affirmation would be nice to free my mind of the demon chatter. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. I don’t want it to, but it does anyway.
- I wonder if my mind is ever light and free or if there are just moments when the thoughts I am having are not as heavy. if I didn’t want to carry them, I should have the fortitude to simply lay them down.
- Stop moving. Stop the incessant and random thinking. Listen to the birds. Hear each one. Focus. Remain purposeful. Listen to the birds.
- I need to find a way to unplug. Disconnect. Nature helps. The camera helps too. It focuses me on something other than my anxiety. It isn’t resting, but it is at peace.