Pieces of Peace

Waking early is going ok. Forever onward.
Other topics: trying to find peace in everyday life. Not necessarily anything profound, just a little levity and perspective.
Ever hear of Monkey Chatter, or the Monkey Brain? It's all the noise, all the voices "chattering" in your head. Every thought, every image, all of it.
The idea behind conquering it is to choose which thoughts to focus on, and which to let slip away. We can't control which thoughts enter our heads, but we can control which ones stay there. Which ones get our focus.
That's the idea, anyway.
I'll take any piece of peace I can get, these days.

More than anything, tonight, I hope my friends and family on the East Coast are all doing well. Safe and secure. Dry and warm.

All good things, my friends.

Days off

Days off can be important, too. Today is mine. :)
See you tomorrow! Thanks for checking in.

All good things to you.

Baby Steps, Baby.

So what have learned? I attempt too much at once. By publicly answering to my commitments, I force self-reflection, and what I'm seeing is big ol' giant steps toward a specific and not immediately attainable goal, rather than baby steps toward creating new life-long habits.

7:30am wake up instead of 8? Half hour, "No Problem", I thought. Um, no.
Turns out to be much harder than I have credit for.
I did wake up, and I stayed awake, but I could NOT drag my butt out of bed until 7:45. And now it's 10:30 that night, and I'm exhausted!
Tomorrow is Saturday, and I'm taking it off. But Sunday, 7:45.

Baby steps, Baby. Baby steps, and growth from there.


All good things to you, thanks for reading.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Another long day.
Didn't do my morning meditation.

You see, I have the unfortunate, yet blissful, habit of waking every morning at 8am to get to work at 8:30. I was not able to break myself of this habit this morning, so did not get to meditating.

But, you know what? No worries. It made it clear to me that meditating was not the first step in front of me. The first step appears, now, to be earlier rising each day.
I'm going to shoot for 7:30 tomorrow. Only one half hour earlier. I think that's doable, right?
Then, another 15 mins in a few days. Another 15 after that. Eventually, I think I'd like to rise at 5 each morning. Go to the gym, take a walk.
Meditate.
Drink tea and watch the sun rise. I dunno. Something. Something nice!

Let's see how 7:30 goes first, though.

And, I'll explore any truths to the old adage and see how much healthier, wealthier, and/or wiser this one simple act makes me.

Now, however, this new first step takes on properties reminiscent of the chicken and the egg: early to bed, early to rise.... Which will more strongly influence the other?? (And which is the first step?)

I'll let you know what I find, my friends.

All good things to you.

Ebb and Flow

It's amazing, at least to me, how fickle emotions can be. Though capable of profound depth, they usually are surface reactions.

Now, those who know me know that I like baseball. Specifically, the Giants.

I felt awful all day today. Wretched, tired, frustrated, lonely, lost. No real reason for feeling this way, I have a beautiful life, it just appeared to be one of those days.

Then the Giants game started, and I immediately felt better. How much joy do I derive from this game? Would I still have been so happy watching baseball if my team was losing? Or even if the game were close? Maybe I was just happy to have finally left work, and the game was a coincidence? Who knows.

Anyway, I think one of these elusive goals that are floating around currently undefined in my head will end up being something to the degree of a concentrated daily self-reflection. A morning meditation. Some time to think clearly about the ebb and flow of emotions, and what causes them. Can I help the way I feel about things, or do I just need to learn ways of dealing with the inevitable feelings once they crop up?
Starting tomorrow, 5-minute morning meditations. I'll let you know how that goes.

Omm...

Let's go!

This is only the beginning. I have many things I want to accomplish: get in shape, learn music, search for meaning, you know, the usual stuff.
I'm not sure where to begin, or what to begin on, but as I go along my journey, I'll be sharing my thoughts here.

Follow along and share the journey!!