A day in the life...

I had to take a few weeks away from the blog world.. and I have to say I missed it quite a bit... both writing and reading.

Isn't it amazing how blogs can give a little snapshot sometimes of our lives. We do so many things and have so many thoughts, and its wonderful to be able to capture those things. I recently came across a journal that I had written from nearly ten years ago. Wow.. so many things have changed since then! I was still in college and I had just met my husband. Going over that journal, there were things in there that I totally don't even remember doing... random conversations on a train, making paper with a friend, hanging out with my sis and finding a $20 bill on the street. Some of it vaguely came back to me, but in some ways I almost felt like I was reading a story of someone else's life. I mean I have a pretty good memory, but when you really think of it, the day in and day out things, we usually completely forget about. Sometimes I even think about this when I'm in the moment.. I have this thought that I won't even remember this day at all at some point in the future. 

Our lives are a story. Each person has a story and its that continuity of memory in order to know the complete story that is what I think makes us uniquely human. They say that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I wonder if this is similar in our own lives. How well do we really know our own stories? What things in our lives do we keep repeating because we haven't learned the lesson the first or second time? Have we learned to be the hero or heroine of our own lives or are we living someone else's plot? Have we learned to see the beauty and originality of our own story and appreciate the amazing part that we get to play in this journey called life?

I just saw tonight the trailer for what looks like an awesome new documentary coming out in January. Its called Life In A Day and it is a global experiment to create a user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day: July 24, 2010. All the videos were made by thousands of regular people as they aim to show a day in their life. It is produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald (they are editing the videos and hopefully making it into something that makes sense :) )

Check it out:

Anyway, I think this is a fabulous idea because I love seeing and appreciating other people's lives and cultures. There are over six BILLION people on this planet and not a single one of our stories is the same. There is so much diversity in what we do, believe, in our customs etc. And yet at the same time I think there is also often so much that is similar among us that we need to learn to appreciate as well. I recently saw the movie Eat, Pray, Love with my mother, sister, and husband. At one point in this movie she is talking about the women in the refugee camps who just want to talk about their boyfriends/ husbands and how she is struck by the human longing for love, no matter what our circumstances and no matter where we are. I think most of us 6 billion are just looking for love, appreciation, and joy in the day-to-day. This may present itself in a million different ways... but really its all the same things - its just the packaging thats different.

The Pursuit of Happiness

One of my favorite books is The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Even if you haven't read anything by him, you may be familiar with his idea about 'following your bliss'.

By following your bliss, he is not referring to living a life of hedonism or doing whatever you want without regard to others, but he is speaking of doing whatever it is that is the 'thing' that really makes you feel fulfilled and alive. Our lives are so short and if we're not waking up in the morning with that excited expectation of doing something we really love, life can definitely be a struggle. Obviously, even when we are doing something we love or serving people we love, it can sometimes be difficult. No one ever said life would be easy, but I think that when we follow our bliss or what we feel is our 'purpose in life', then the struggles don't feel like struggles but more like opportunities to grow and learn.

Some other Campbell quotes I like are:

“The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy — not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what is called following your bliss.”

“The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive”

“Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

I was thinking about this last quote (about how to 'let go' and 'accept' and the same time) when I decided to wander over again to The Happiness Project. One of Gretchen's articles was talking about embracing many of life's paradoxes.

She gives a quote by Vikram Chandra in his novel Sacred Games:
“Sartaj was thinking about how uncanny an animal this life was, that you had to seize it and let go of it at the same time, that you had to enjoy but also plan, live every minute and die every moment.”


She then goes on to list some more of life's paradoxes:

I want to Be Gretchen and accept myself, but I also want to perfect my nature (as this entire project demonstrates). I want to think about myself so I can forget myself. I want to work on my own happiness so I can make other people happier.

I want to lighten up and not take myself so seriously — but I also want to take myself more seriously.

I want to spend my time efficiently and not waste it, but I also want to wander, to play, to fail, to read at whim. I want to keep an empty shelf, and also keep a junk drawer.

I want to be free from envy and fear of the future, and live fully in the present moment -- but not to lose my ambition.

Control and mastery are key elements of happiness; so are novelty and challenge.

Everything matters, and nothing matters. As Samuel Butler wrote in his Notebooks, “Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.”

So in this world of paradoxes, how does one pursue happiness? You don't. Like the elusive bluebird of happiness, its usually found when you stop looking for it.

Some Happiness quotes I like:

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: if you pursue happiness you'll never find it. ~C.P. Snow

If you want to be happy, be. ~Leo Tolstoy

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are. ~Palmer Sondreal

Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. ~Robert Anthony

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time. ~Edith Wharton

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness. ~Robertson Davies

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad. ~Norm Papernick

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner. ~Colette

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. ~James Openheim

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open. ~John Barrymore

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. ~H. Jackson Browne

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. ~Margaret Young

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness is a direction, not a place. ~Sydney J. Harris

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness. ~Bernard de Fontenelle

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. ~Joseph Addison

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. ~Samuel Johnson

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Some pursue happiness, others create it. ~Author Unknown

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time. ~Josh Billings

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it. ~William Feather

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response. ~Mildred Barthel

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling. ~Margaret Lee Runbeck

Life's Simple Joys

I created another blog the other day. Its called Life's Simple Joys... and it's simply that - a simple blog where I try to write one simple joy that I'm thankful for every day. There's so much to be thankful for, and we can so often overlook the small things that make life wonderful. This is just my attempt to focus my attention more on appreciating the good and the lovely... and I hope perhaps it will help anyone reading it to do the same.

There are often so many things that can go wrong in a day. For example, today my computer crashed... actually it won't even start. Fortunately I have another computer that I'm typing on now, but the one thats not working is the one I use for my home business and do all my shipping from. Usually this would have totally stressed me out. But instead I just feel peace today so I made a few calls and even though I had to wait 30 minutes on hold with one company trying to get a few answers, I'm still completely thankful that there was someone to help me. My computer is still not working, but I was able to transfer the shipping program to this computer, and I'm in the process of looking for a new computer (I really have been meaning to get a new one for quite some time). Sometimes we can't control our outer circumstances, but what we can control is our attitude towards those circumstances.. and I think that is what having true joy is all about.

Dashboard

We had a memorial service for my grandfather this weekend, who had passed away in November. He lived in Florida, so they had a service there at the time, but he is actually being buried up here with my grandmother in the town that they spent most of their lives and raised their seven children. My grandfather was a very devoted and outspoken Christian. This sometimes put people off, but overall he left quite an amazing legacy behind him.

As we went to the grave site and looked at the dash between the dates, I was reminded again of the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis, and it got me thinking about the 'Dashboard' of our lives. First, here's the poem if you don't know it (or its always good to read again):

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

from the beginning...to the end.

He noted that first came her date of birth

and spoke the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the “dash” between those years. (1934 -1998)

For that dash represents all the time

that she spent alive on earth...

and now only those who loved her

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;

the cars...the house...the cash,

what matters is how we live and love

and how we spend our “dash”.

So think about this long and hard...

are there things you'd like to change?

For you never know how much time is left,

that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what's true and real,

and always try to understand

the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,

and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives

like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,

and more often wear a smile...

remembering that this special “dash”

might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy's being read

with your life's actions to rehash...

would you be proud of the things they say

about how you spent your “dash”?

This poem really puts things in perspective for me. I think I'm a fairly reflective person and I try to live life to its fullest (most of the time), but often I can tend to get on autopilot and all of a sudden a week or month has gone by and I have to say to myself, where did the time go? What did I really do with the time that was given to me? If I had a dashboard for my life, what would it say about how I was using my dash? How would I measure up? 

In this high tech world that we live in, we have so many gizmo's and gadgets, and it seems that we attempt to measure everything. We're a culture obsessed with analytics and metrics. From the time we're born, we're measured and weighed to see how we 'size' up. We go to school and we're tested and tested until we become geniuses at taking tests (even if we have no way of knowing how to apply that knowledge). We have IQ tests, social IQ tests, personality tests, career aptitude tests... We like to measure everything. 

We have dashboards for our cars

Dashboards for our computers

Dashboards for our blogs

But what about measuring the really important things of our lives? Can we measure the amount of love, respect, or appreciation in our lives? Can we put these things on a dashboard? If I could, what would it say about the direction I'm going in? Am I going too fast or do I need to 'slow down enough to consider what's true and real'? What's the temperature of my passion? Have I let it cool too much? Perhaps I can't put these things on a literal dashboard, but I do want to truly try to take an assessment of my life before my 'eulogy's being read'. 


I actually just looked up a few personal life tests and discovered that there are many out there such as the 'clean sweep' assessment or authentic happiness questionnaires. Perhaps I'll try a few of these just for the fun of it, and I'm sure I'll learn some interesting things about myself or they will help me to work on some things I want to change. Really though, when it comes down to it, when that time comes for me to leave this world, it won't matter if I did or didn't back up my hard drive monthly (one of the weird questions on the clean sweep assessment). There's really only one thing that I hope that people will say about my little dash of a life: 'it was filled with a whole lotta love'. :)

New Life

The weather has been absolutely amazing this weekend! It got up over 80 yesterday... and I was soaking it all in as much as I could. The buds are just bursting out and our pond is absolutely filled to the max with lots of beautiful little frogs. Today was Easter as well, which is the ultimate holiday of new life.

Right now I am watching Life on the Discovery Channel, which is incredible. There is so much diversity to life! Every time I watch a documentary like this I am just in such awe. I am so happy to be living at a time when I can see all this diversity of life through programs such as this, as so much of it could never be seen in real life due to their habitats. I am thankful to everyone who makes these programs possible.



I love these Discover Channel commercials because I, well, love the world!

Buttons

Last night we finally got around to seeing the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I thought it was a great movie. The special effects of him being an old man and then a young boy were quite astounding to me.

This movie is LOOSELY based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Usually I like to read the book/story before watching a movie and I like Fitzgerald, but in this case I hadn't gotten the chance. I did read the story this afternoon though. You can read the entire text on line from the University of Virginia. I almost always like the original books more than the movies they are based on, but not in this case. I thought the movie was better. It really had to be adapted quite a bit in order to make it into something that anyone would want to see.

Anyway, I really liked some of the quotes from the movie, so I am copying them here:

"Benjamin Button: For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

"You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go"

"Benjamin, we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

"Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss."

"Benjamin Button: Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people — dance"

I was definitely crying by this last line. I was crying because everything does change, everyone does die, because life is so beautiful, life is so fragile, life is so diverse. Because all these things and more, I cried. I think that is what made this film so moving to me. And even though Fitzerald's story wasn't his best work, I think he secretly knew something when he gave Benjamin the last name Button.

I love buttons. They don't have to be on clothes. Actually I like when they are not on clothes the best. I love when you can see the diversity of a bunch of old buttons all together in a jar. There are a couple of great antique shops that I go to that have a great collection of buttons. Even though they have lived past their purpose... maybe the clothes that they once were on are now out of fashion or they somehow got separated from their brothers or sisters on the shirt or dress they once belonged to... they still have an interesting place, even if its just the fact that they make me smile when I see them.

So perhaps Fitzgerald had a thing about buttons too. Although this may be stretching it, buttons (like people) have a purpose, they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and although they have a limited time of usefulness (they get old or un-necessary), their 'lives' can still have meaning and add beauty to the world past their point of purpose if there are those that were willing to appreciate this beauty.

The Creation of Value or The Meaning of Life or 42

In a previous post, I was commenting that I had been thinking of the concept of value recently. Then, the other day, I picked up a book entitled The Creation of Value by Irving Singer, who is a professor at MIT. The book is quite good and I thought I'd copy some of it down so that I can look back at it. I usually do this in a journal, but now that I have a blog, it will be so much easier to find where I write down these random things. I can find most of it again in google books.



There are some pages not included in this preview however, so here are some quotes/notes from those pages:

1. Throughout history educated people generally assumed that philosophy, like religion, is capable of elucidating the meaning of life. In the past, philosophers often made this attempt. But the twentieth century has been quite different. Questions about the meaning of life have been dismissed or neglected by many of the greatest thinkers in the last hundred years. Even if they were right to do so, we must nevertheless wonder why it is that human beings are both attracted to such matters and constantly baffled by them.

2. A healthy person does not brood about the meaning of life. He gets up in the morning and throws himself into activities that involve his energies and provide personal gratifications.

9/10. Peasants - Without much schooling and without systematic thought, they had learned how to live in manner that eluded him. They acted out of faith rather than reason, and he concluded that only faith comparable to theirs could make life meaningful. This helped him toward religious feelings he thought he had outgrown.

14/15. Above all, we must ask ourselves whether we understand what the original problem was. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Once you know what the question is, you'll know what the answer is.



21/22. Nietzche - amor fati (love of destiny, or things as they really are). This attitude entails a heroic and healthy-minded acceptance of reality even though it is horrible and wholly destructive to everything that participates in it. The worst parts of existence also belong to reality, and he has determined to love and therefore accept it all completely.

I just realized the google book ends on page 34, so there is far too much to fill in here and probably not right to do with regard to copyright. Here's one last quote though from page 103:

John Stuart Mills: People can be happy only if they "have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end".

Unwritten

From an article by Robert Butche:
'Life has two different meanings: the period between birth and death; and the experience or state of being alive. The first is a physiological state of existence only partially under our control. The latter is a state of consciousness that is part historical, part now, and part future. What we do with our life is entirely of our own making.'

From the moment of our birth we are in the business of life. At that instant we are an unwritten book waiting to be filled with discovery, mischief, activities and challenges. For some of us our arrival is a moment of great joy for those present, while for others of us it is either a non-event, or unwanted, or to be concealed. But there we are giggly, gurgily and infantile — without a clue as to what our life will be, or the slightest notion of what life is about.

Some of us will make of our lives a fine journey — filled with joy, achievement, love and satisfaction. The rest of us will find living difficult at best, suffer from oppression, or deprivation, or simply fail ourselves and those we love.

There was no graduation ceremony from fetus to human. No one told us about the business of life. No user manual was offered at our birth, no heart-to-heart talk with our parents about our place in their lives or their’s in our’s. But arrive we did. At that moment, the business of life had begun.

Little do we know when we arrive that we are the masters of our own ship. Being infants we’d have no basis of understanding, but even in childhood discovery of life’s mysteries and demands will remain largely obscured. No one is likely to step forward to explain to us that we, and we alone, will determine how we shall use our physical existence to traverse a life path that realizes our potential as conscious, thinking entities.

Unfortunately, no one explained the rules of life to us when we arrived here. We grew up absent any clear concept of the opportunities and pitfalls that would intersect our lives. Nor had we a rational way of thinking about them, planning for them, or even recognizing them along the way. If only there had been a clear set of instructions permanently affixed in our brain we could have related what we experienced in our lives with far greater understanding and wisdom. For example, what if we knew, even as children,

Life’s Unwritten Rule Book

Here are some of its most important rules.

Life will be what we make of it.
Everything said to be good for us isn’t.
Even those we most trust and respect sometimes lie, betray or damage us.
There never was and never will be a free meal, free sex, or free anything.
Others are prone to tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to know.
We are responsible for our own happiness, joy, and satisfaction.
Life is a solo journey during which neither friends, family, lovers or spouses fully share our needs, wants, attitudes, beliefs, or values.
Successful lives are the product of the quality of our journey, not the illusion of destination.
Someone else’s definition of success may not only be wrong for them, but wrong for us.
Money, power, prestige and status are not directly or permanently related to happiness, success or fulfillment.
Most people are lost and confused about who they are and what they want.
We cannot succeed and will never be happy marching to someone else’s drummer.



Business, even the business of life is about transactions in which we trade some part of ourselves for something essential to our being. Every event, word, deed, action and activity of our life thus becomes a transaction that defines who we are, what we bring to the game, and where we are in achieving our goals, aspirations, or destiny. Each of our transactions is permanently recorded in the book of me, and each one results in the activities, actions, events and outcomes that frame our existence.

It is our own book of me that tells our life story — all the better that someone explain to us early on that everything we do, achieve, accomplish or fail at will define what our life. All the other stuff only served to fill time, misdirect our attention, or subvert our character.

Happiness, satisfaction and eternal peace do not result from any business beyond our own lives, for money, power, looks, influence and ephemeral success are transitory, ephemeral, unsubstantive and fleeting. All the things we were told would give our lives meaning fall to the side along life’s path.

Since the history of our life will be with us forever, the life path we choose and how we manage it is the only measure of our accomplishment, maturation, fulfillment and satisfaction. None of us will take our worldly possessions with us, but each of us will take with us our own book of me. For those who are religious, the book of me is a record of how we lived and accomplished for mankind–and our qualifications for a final place of rest. For the rest of us, the book of me is the final scorecard, the final chapter and the summation of our short visit to consciousness and realization.

Well, you get the idea by now that life is what we make of it. There is no single thread of success, and there is no single path to enlightenment. For each of us, comprised as we are by genomic elements nearly as complex as the cosmos, are unique on this planet. There are, nevertheless some universal truths, reliable methods of inquiry, and time honored mile posts we can use to guide us along or near that life path most likely to fulfill our dreams and satisfy our thirst for living life to its fullest. Love, relationships, friends and family are central to everything we do or accomplish on our own short visit to a very small planet.

And now, a favorite song and video (I particularly like this version with the old books :) )



I have two college roommates who both had babies born prematurely. One was born at 1.10 lbs. and the other at 1.5 lbs. One of those babies is a healthy 'almost 5 years' old now. The other was just born this fall. Those lives almost didn't get a chance to be written upon or to discover what this crazy life is all about. Fortunately, because of today's technology and quite a few prayers, they will.

Here is the online address to help support my friend's team for March of Dimes:

http://www.marchforbabies.org/s_team_page.asp?si=&SeId=1308282

This walk will be on April 18th in Worcester, MA.