Sunday, August 26, 2012

Book

I'm going to get a book deal,

If I can stand for an hour a day, I can do that.  I can sit with my self-doubt and self sabotaging feelings and do what needs to be done, finish the outline, finish the overview.  Send it out. Write down the goals, schedule the time.  I know I can do that.

So now it's time to see what is stopping me.

Inner stress. Some kind of psychic stress that is awakened every time I try to make a career for myself.

Rather than try and solve this stress, I need to diffuse it a little.  Accept that writing and working is always going to be  a little painful for me.  But it's a good pain.  Like running.  Like standing.  It's a pain that's worth facing.  Because at the end of the day I have something that I can send out.  I have something that is going to connect me to the world.  And I have something that is going to bring me peace, because there is no peace than the peace of having valued, necessary and useful skills.

It's a pain that I want to avoid though.  A pain that I struggle to avoid.  A pain that I have developed avoidance habits around.  So I need to sit down and look at the obstacles that stand in the way of me sitting down to do that one hour of writing on my proposal every day.

These obstacles are:

Compulsive distractions.  My tendency to surf and avoid.

Not knowing the ending of my book. Makes it hard to complete outline.

Ah well.  I know the ending.  The book ends happily with my great book contract.



Monday, August 20, 2012

Happiness Engineer

Yesterday I missed my scheduled posting because I was at Wordpress camp.  Trawling around the internet afterwards I disovered that WP has a job posting.  Happiness Engineer.

What a wonderful thing to be.  To help people develop the skills that will lead them to happiness.  The skills that will help them to connect with other people.  Help them to create and find good quality information.  Help them to process that information.  I think that would be a great job and I'm going to apply for it.

I guess I'm becoming a Wordpress evangelist.




Sunday, August 12, 2012

Happiness is....

According to Mathieu Ricard in Happiness:  "a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind.  This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being.  Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may  be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it."

This has been the most stressful year of my life and I'm not out of the woods yet.

But I can get out.

I will get out because I have such a fantastic skill with standing.  It is the fundamental skill of happiness.  It is the path to the flourishing sense of well being that Mathieu Ricard talks about.

Most of my life has been about acquiring knowledge.  My mother was a professor, my father a journalist.  That's the way I was raised.  I've never really thought about acquiring skills as a value.  It was all about acquiring knowledge.

But programming has changed that.

I feel the flourishing of knowledge as I do this.  Just as I have felt the flourishing of peace when I commit to standing.

I will get out.

Because when you have a  healthy mind you see the patterns.  You see the right patterns.  You see what needs to be done and you do it.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Inner programmer

I keep forgetting that she's there, this inner programmer who speaks to me with such confidence every time I stand.  The polar opposite of everything I am usually thinking or feeling.

I stand and she emerges, and life is simple.  Just stand, she says, just stand and everything will be fine.  Just stand and your energy will grow.  Just stand and your vitality will grow.  Just stand and you will stay close to your values and strengths.  Just stand and your body will remember all the great things it is capable of, and your mind will have the thoughts you need to have.

Keep standing.  Just keep standing.  That's my voice.

Keep writing is my father's voice.

Keep standing is my voice.

Listen to me, she says.  Listen.

You're going to be fine.

Just relax and you're going to be fine.

Chi is the goal and the way.  You can't go wrong. It's impossible.