Where Do You Land

Are you optimistic, pessimistic, neutralistic? Is the world abundant, scarce, or three bears just right? Is your view of the world about how you perceive the truth, your disposition, and your experiences? I can find myself feeling ‘hell-in-a-handbasket’ like my father, my grandfather, and I am sure on occasion, my grandchildren or I can deliberately expect and demand a different perspective from myself and different results from the world. My tendencies are a matter of wiring, and if I don’t want to continue wallowing in self-pity, I can undertake to rewire my brain to observe the magic, beauty, and mystery alongside the tragedy, hatred, and vitriol.

For me, it begins with morning meditation. I use a guided application called “Lojong,” and practice is the first activity I schedule after my feet hit the floor. It isn’t a spiritual exercise as much as a consciousness and mindfulness kick start. This morning’s meditation was about gratitude for discomfort and how the aches and pains I feel physically and emotionally are likely my body and brain attempting to protect me from additional harm. Without feeling the twinge in my left Achille’s tendon, I might run until something snaps. If I didn’t feel anxious, I might jump off the next cliff without some measure of investigation and reflection. If I didn’t regret not saying something to a loved one in a time of trouble, I might become callous and distant.

I don’t have any chronic conditions that cause me distress do I am not sure how someone could feel grateful for that kind of infliction. Still, I encourage you to take a moment to understand and appreciate your stress, aches, or anxiety. Don’t allow yourself to wallow in it, and don’t just accept the situation if there are options to improve or dissipate them.

My tactics for reframing are ecological, entertaining, and explicit. If I want to change my patterns, thoughts, or actions, I need to be aware of the surroundings that I find myself in and the surroundings that fit with how I see the changed self I want to become. To be more grateful, I can’t be surrounded by ungrateful or selfish people. I need to be surrounded by light, love, and learning. I can’t continue doing the same things in the same places in the same way that brought me to the valley of distrust and disappointment. For the circumstances to change, I need to change my where and how, and who. Escaping from stinking thinking is essential. It means that there are people in my life today that can’t be in my life tomorrow. There are places I need to stop going and actions that I must stop undertaking. We all have a preferred or imagined ecology that fulfills more of our aspirations, and unfortunately, it won’t manifest itself. We need to seek it out through our actions.

I can be shallow and unfocused, and unless the change process is fun, I know that I might retreat to the depths that I am trying to escape. Fun need not be onerous or expensive. Meeting with uplifting people for an activity, a meeting, a coffee, a walk will put a smile on my face even when or because the conversation is an adventure. I met with three friends this morning for ninety minutes, and we ranged across the sublime and inane to the profound and debatable. We laughed, we shared, we disagreed, and we hugged. We expressed our gratitude for each other and the time spent and booked another gathering for a month from now. I left inspired, thankful, and challenged. The stimulus of camaraderie and conversation caused neurons to fire against my hippocampus and began nurturing new pathways.

My final tactic, explicit, is really an e word for intentional. ( I love alliteration so much that I am always trying to catch it in my lists – ecological, entertaining, and explicit). In my worldview, nothing happens organically. Or nothing will predictably happen without intention. Therefore, I must invest my resources and time in creating a V2.0 or V11.5 of me, and I need to be vested in the outcome.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” ~ Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

Make today Remarkable, by choice,

Bob