Five Months Later
It was January 9, 2018 and I was thinking it was time for a new blog post. Then it was February and dark and there was nothing but a black void in my cyclone mind. Then it was spring again and the journal pages began filling themselves, and ink ran dry, so I grappled around the back of my nightstand drawer for a different pen and found a piece of notebook paper, crumpled in the back of the drawer.
The date was January 31, 2017.
What matters to me most is physical and mental health. When I maintain physical and mental health, I am empowered to do other things I value highly. Such as:
* Be a benefit to others
* Be peaceful and at ease
* Be kind to myself
* Practice Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements
1. Be impeccable with my word
2. Don't take anything personally
3. Don't make assumptions
4. Always do my best
* Allow imperfection
* Be non-judgmental toward self and others
* Move slowly and mindfully throughout the day
* Bring busy mind thoughts back to the present moment gently, kindly, and with humor
345 days later, I went to my go-to responses: unkind and judgmental. How could I have made so little progress? Then humor pulled itself out of the well of self-loathing: I do set some pretty high standards. A little kindness slid in and I thought, well, I know I tried.
Another random piece of paper I found with my handwriting on it had no date:
Dean James Ryan's 5 Essential Questions for Life
I had no memory at all of this Dean James Ryan, so I did an internet search and found this, to my surprise, saved in my favorites.
You can listen and watch here:
Or just read the excerpts I jotted down, which won't mean much unless you listen to his brief speech:
1. Wait.... What? (the root of all understanding)
2. I wonder... (the heart of all curiosity)
3. Couldn't we at least... (the beginning of all progress)
4. How can I help (the base of all good relationships)
5. What really matters? (gets you to the heart of life)
Instead of New Year's Resolutions
ASK MYSELF
What truly matters to me?
The dean's bonus question came from a poem by Raymond Carver called "Late Fragment," one of the last poems he wrote.
And did you get
what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on this earth.
What truly matters, in the end, to any of us?
