The Choices We Make

Quest by Quotation

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. ~Anthony Robbins

What choices are you facing? Are you afraid to make a choice, realizing it may change your life? Consider making a small decision today in order to gradually make the big decision facing you.

All I have been doing the last few months, or so it seems, is make decisions. Apply for a certain job. Turn down a second interview. Go back for a second interview.

Now I have a new job and you would think my life would be simpler. One major hurdle out of the way. But NO! What schedule will I have in my twenty hour job? Do I wear more color than the much younger staff or fade back to black? Do I want a lap or desk top computer?

Ah, that last one decision was difficult to make. I am a person who can see both sides of any situation. The lap top would be used by potentially more people. But then so would the desktop and could be taken into the field. I could use my ergonomic keyboard with either one. I could take the laptop home.

Whoa! At this point, though my job can grow and I am paid for each hour I work, I know my workaholic tendencies would make it easy for me to work at home and not write, create cards or relax. So my decision to get a desktop was based on making sure I left work behind (at least in a physically symbolic way).

Taking control of my life through making one of many choices we make each day, I already feel more relaxed.

May your decisions bring you peace and may making the choice to make a decision bring you peace as well.

Peace, Julie

Living a Full Life

Quest by Quotation

The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty. Eric Hoffer

Would you say your life is full or empty? Write down the "turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises" of the last month and see how full it maybe.

I admit it. I hadn't the impetus to write between the middle of December and now. The cajoling of friends didn't do it. The need to be creative didn't do it. All that time and nothing really to show for it. But here I am, writing again. Why now?

The short answer is that my husband got up at 4:30AM this morning, and, therefore, so did I. The longer answer is that I have started a new job, life is fuller, and I alway seem to write best when I don't "have the time."

Nothing like typing "full life" into bartleby.com and getting Eric Hoffer's quote. It affirmed to me the sense that I have of the universe lining up the way it is for a reason. The time I had off from full-time, non-temporary assignments was full in other regards. But it was time to move forward and I have been blessed enough to find a job that makes a difference in people's lives while allowing me to have more time with my family. With a first grandbaby coming, that is even more of a priority.

Prepping for my new job hire, as I practiced answering behavioral interviewing questions, allowed me to revisit the "turns, acheivements, disappointments, surprises, and crises" of my life. "Talk about a time when you failed at something." "Describe a time when you had to be prepared for any eventuality." "What do you consider your best acheivement." My spouse and I went through one hundred of those types of questions. A crash course in life reflection in the space of a week. A full life, getting more interesting all the time. All that pondering has cleared the deck for the next portion of my life and learning.

So here I go....

Spending Time with Dickens

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ~Charles Dickens

What makes your heart open up this time of year? What causes and people tug at your heart?

This week is exam week for my daughter. She was complaining the other day about how the library at school is noisy, no longer the refuge of quiet study it used to be. Between cell phones, study groups and the lack of the traditional "shhhhhhhhh" from the staff, the stacks hum like a beehive rather than bear silent witness to the stress of studying.

How different it was in my day. During winter exams, same school, decades before, I would find myself heading up to the quiet seventh floor, grabbing a cubicle. But I didn't settle in to study. I searched the shelves for Dicken's A Christmas Carol. The story of a miserly man transformed by the season, with its descriptions of the England of another age, always calmed my anxiety about test taking. I had rediscovered the book by accident one semester when I needed a break from the textbooks and, from then on, it became a tradition to read it this time of year. A copy is sitting on my nightstand right now. They say listening to classical music for thirty minutes is the equivalent of taking 10 mgs of prozac. For me, reading A Christmas Carol produces the same effect - a feeling of peace comes over me and meditating on the true meaning of the season comes a little more easily.

Is it the ghosts of past, present and future that capture me? Maybe it is the message that our hearts are always capable of being turned toward God and goodwill. So, as this time of year, I send up a prayer of thanksgiving for the good heart and fervent nature of Charles Dickens, whose social commentary became a book for the ages.

Anticipating Advent

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing. Samuel Smiles

As we look forward, in the season of Advent which begins this weekend, what are you anticipating or, better yet, what would be added to your life if you made anticipating a part of your every day thoughts?

I am part of a bookmark swap this season. Thirty eight people from all over the world are sending each other Christmas cards and bookmarks of all types. We don't know each other but have a common interest in reading. A friend reminded me there are quilters who send each other tiny quilt squares. Yet another reminded me of the art card swaps she has participated in where a playing card sized piece of art is sent to others and you receive one in return.

I have discovered this swap has an unexpected benefit beyond the wonderful creations which will replace my torn bits of paper and magazine cards as well as prevent dog-earing. Each day I walk out to the mailbox in anticipation. I haven't felt this excited about the mail since I was in fifth grade and we were assigned pen pals in other countries. Already I have been rewarded with Christmas cards to beautify my window ledges and bookmarks that make me think and smile. I look forward to tomorrow and hearing the postman go by.

Looking forward. It is a gift that I often ignore until something like this comes around. Anticipation. It is a seasonal companion that we can't afford to be without. I have a job interview this week and realized I am calm about the meeting because I am looking forward to it. I am anticipating learning more about myself and the folks I am interviewing with. Mainly, I am just anticipating that the possibility of me finding something (that uses all my skills in a big way) is the first step to making my future come true.

Happy first week of Advent, beginning Sunday December 2nd.
Look forward, dream, anticipate.

Enjoying Thanksgiving

Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
J. Petit-Senn

So often we think about the things we do not have and the scarcity theory takes hold, and we panic, thinking we don't have enough. What are the things you enjoy now, regardless of what is lacking? Can you give thanks for these things and be content?

Trust the comic strips to provide inspiration. Mutts showcased the quote by Petit-Senn and I immediately took it to heart. Easily, I can think of the things right now lacking in my life. Probably because it is a Monday morning and there isn't enough caffeine in my system. It is one thing to ponder what I do have to be thankful for but it is quite another spin to think about what I enjoy and relish that fact.

So here I go, as I ponder what I enjoy:

• Leaves bursting with color, all the more special being delayed by the drought for weeks.
• Hanging with my husband in front of the television watching football on Saturday or Sunday afternoons (okay, so I sort of watch with a craft or book in my hands).
• Mccutcheon's Pumpkin Butter appearing this time each year at Whole Foods. And they are in Fredrick, Maryland to boot.
• Spending Thanksgiving at my son and daughter-in-law's, not having to cook the turkey.
• Making Advent cards and bookmarks with supplies I have on hand. Picking the quotes and designing just makes my soul happy.
• Coffee and lunch with friends. The time we have together never seems long enough.
• Sitting in my terra cotta colored family room, reading a book and drinking tea at three in the afternoon.
• Seeing my son when he stops by on his work break and shopping with my daughter.
• Trying on expensive shoes and being able to walk away - without them on my feet!
• Writing as the mood strikes.

It is wonderful to realize I could go on with my list. I believe I will do just that, but in my head, as I go about my day and Thanksgiving week. Enjoy!