Cross Country Excursion

I spent much of the past week driving across the country with my brother and his dogs. Moving is a lot of work. As much as I relish the idea of periodically changing environs, learning new ways and meeting new people, moving is a lot of work. Good thing it was his move, not mine.
The trip itself was pleasant enough. Great conversation. Too much Diet Coke. I now know—thanks to a billboard large enough to conceal an entire home—where Carrie Underwood grew up. McDonald's has cleaner restrooms than gas station minimarts. And I'm not selling my shares of Starbucks while so much of Highway 40 remains unexploited.
As much fun as we had and as quickly as the time passed, I'm not running out to get my 16-wheeler license. Though it was good for my imagination to have permission to dance and play, explore and create, ooze and morph without having to produce or sell by a certain date.
Anyone else need a driving partner?

Living the Day I Choose

It's pouring rain outside. Cleansing, nourishing blessing? Messy, dangerous nuisance? Depends on one's perspective.
I have been learning a lot recently about my power and responsibility when interpreting reality. I will have a better experience of today if I choose to welcome the rainfall rather than curse it. (Knowing I'm a native Angeleno, you can probably guess my first tendency.)
What alternate interpretations are there for the myriad other things that happen during the course of a day? What is my role in how they affect me? How will my choices affect those very circumstances, people and events? Do I influence change by trying to get others to change? Or do I merely show up differently myself which becomes the next event they need to respond to? A choice possibly different than what they would have chosen had I not made my choice to be different. Hence change. Change without manipulation or control.
I believe I am beginning to like the rain.

Dressing Up

I don't usually wear a suit and tie, but there's something about dressing so sharp on the outside that makes me feel quite a bit more sharp on the inside. I'm feeling particularly sharp right now.
I might even dress up more often. Go around impressing myself. Be intimidated by my own presence.
Don't let me near a tux!

The Stewardship of Decision

Catapulted into another day, I attempt to lay out all the should-do's and want-to-do's and must-do's and decide what will become a done or a think-more-about or a kind-of-do and hopefully not a botch-it.
It's all my life. It's all a gift. I know I've made it clear that I enjoy some of it a lot and some of it not at all. But it is all sacred. The stewardship of decision weighs heavily yet ennobling upon my shoulders. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wouldn't give it up for the certainty of obedience or the vindication of reward. I willfully and recklessly invest all my hope in the incoercible favor of my maker, the unrestrained fellowship of my savior, and the unverifiable power of my sustainer.
Hmm. To what task shall I next give myself?

Brave the Grey

Chilled heart braves the grey dawn, wandering in search of what it may already possess. Magnificent gift or audacious grab. Turning off the path, the dew dances around my ankles and the quest loses some urgency in the seductive glories of the moment. Icy winds swoop in with an abrupt reminder that loitering is not safe during the storm season. I pick up my pace and wonder whether obtaining my goal or getting out of the cold is my greater drive. What seemed easily true journeying along lush riverbanks may no longer be the case in the desert. We assume much when we we traverse paths blazed by others. Neither the dim grey light nor the harshness of the terrain will steal my courage, though maybe steel my nerve.

Majoring in the Majors

Ideas, relationships and processes are my majors.
My drive and passion are highest when I'm immersed in a major.
Two thoughts come to mind. How can I major in my majors and minor in my minors, when it all needs to happen? How can I establish more conscious and emotional connections between my minors and how they get me to my majors.
On the first count, there are, of course, people for whom my minors are their majors. People for whom, what I avoid they pursue; what sucks the life out of me infuses them with meaning and purpose; what is a stretch or a chore for me comes easily and delightfully to them. I need not travel alone. Who do I need on my team?
On the second count, I imagine that if I could see more clearly how the roles and tasks I don't want to do will get me to what I do want to do, then some motivational determination and energy will follow. An assumption, to be sure, but not without basis.
I need more ways to tap into my majors and supplement my minors, so that my internal resources aren't exhausted trying to become something I'm not in order to some day be who I am. Tragic irony to lay the tracks but forget the destination.

Dive In

Enough testing the waters—dive in. Life's too short. Opportunities pass too quickly. Some things cannot be learned loitering along the shoreline.

Big Dreams

Does one need permission to dream big? And if so, from whom?
Some seem limitless in their capacity to dream on unbounded scales. Some consider dreams a luxury the practical realities of this life do not afford us.
I refer not to those dreams which serve as an escape from reality, but those which serve as a precursor to reality. Down to earth people for whom dreams are but the initial schematic drawings of a down to earth future which has yet to take form.
I want to be one of those people. That much in my imagination does not currently exist, has no bearing on its potential to exist. Hence the danger of a permission mentality. I, in essence, give a vote to those who cannot yet see or understand what I see. Vetoed by the status quo—norms whose only normality is the ongoing absence of workable alternatives.
The question is not who will affirm me, but who will help me. Others are not life's referees, blowing the whistle and stopping the action when I break the rules, but my teammates and my partners, who are co-creating and advancing the future we have dreamed must now take form.

Attitude

Attitude is momentum fuel.
Dousing flames with gasoline. Intangible powers unleashed.
Whether arising spontaneously or out of meticulous training, my attitude colors everything. Whether intentional choice or circumstantial mood, it is the difference between trudging along and dancing freely. Raging forest fire or controlled burn. Destructive blaze or warming hearth. Terrifying threat or sustaining passion.
Attitude for this next day of my life. What will I choose?

Refreshing Mist

Cool mist blankets weary faces in the predawn stillness. "Another day!" being either a shout of anticipation or a groan of despair. Chesterton's child-like God delighted again each morning with another miraculous cycle. Ever the same, always new. Or the sinking realization that one's waking did not end the nightmare, but, in fact, seems to be closing in all around you, sealing off all exits.
We take ourselves wherever we go. Gift or curse, depending on one's frame of reference. Human maturity is imperceptibly slow. A reflection of steady, sure progress or stubborn resistence?
There's something refreshing about the morning mist, though, that cleanses spirits and renews hope. Got to get outside earlier in the day and lift my weary face upward in receptive anticipation.