Via 43 Folders (http://www.43folders.com/2009/12/14/enough) is this pdf (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-1.pdf).
70 or so people were asked to ‘talk about a word or phrase related to their own idea of What Matters Now.’ The results are short, brief, digestible and definitely thought-provoking.
Passion:
Some people ask, “What if I haven’t found my true passion?”
It’s dangerous to think in terms of “passion” and “purpose” because they sound like such huge overwhelming ideas.
If you think love needs to look like “Romeo and Juliet”, you’ll overlook a great relationship that grows slowly.
If you think you haven’t found your passion yet, you’re probably expecting it to be overwhelming.
Instead, just notice what excites you and what scares you on a small moment-to-moment level.
You grow (and thrive!) by doing what excites you and what scares you everyday, not by trying to find your passion.
The weekend is over and I don’t care.
“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” – Plato.
from http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/12/14/books-and-laptops-and-bugs/
Just read something a friend posted and it’s cheered me up no end. Mostly because I can associate with how they’re feeling. Somethings you have to experience to truly appreciate.
That turning the corner feeling, the feeling that things are changing is just amazing.
#goodtimes
(I’ve been a little distracted by Kottke.org, he links to some interesting stuff.)
Including this > http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/.
He calls it an essay, so I wasn’t the expecting the format it is in. It’s this sort of quiet, unassuming format where the words and pictures mix together and become more the total of their parts. It’s quite thoughtful too, considering what we’re doing and how we might do things better.
Best quote > 
I daren’t look at the others tonight.
“Where are you going, what are you doing? Then what happens, and then, and then? Moment by moment, our lives pass us by as we move onto the next thing, missing the miracle, which is our ability to experience life. Instead we choose to live in the fantasy of hope, grounded in a fundamental dissatisfaction of our lives. Often subtle but always there, a pervasive belief that life will be better once……. of course it never is, but still we play this game. A Catch 22 that often consumes entire lifetimes. Playing the game is not the problem, it is the belief that the game is real that feeds our suffering.”
http://www.thehorshamsangha.co.uk/?p=138
I think we need to remind ourselves of that sometimes. I think about the line in the title a lot. It’s what I think I want tattooed around my wrist. A permanent reminder that, this, right here and right now is all that really matters. There are times when it helps to focus on what happens next, of course and there are times when you just need to let it be.
Let this right now, be enough.
See also “If this isn’t nice I don’t know what is”
“And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ”If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ”If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”"
link
via > http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=428
(I paraphrase.)
Friends are the people who know what you’re really like but are still willing to talk to you.
Had a lovely meal with Jenn yesterday in Pizza Express (good service makes such a difference) in Worcester. Then just hung around, watching t.v., eating fish and chips and flambee bananas, being rude and laughing a whole lot.
Been a strange week, a whole lot of things to think about – John’s funeral on Monday, the two dates with a lovely girl on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s been a lot to take in, to digest I suppose. Sometimes that happens doesn’t it, you just sort of keep going and don’t spend time considering what is actually happening? (Though, anyone who has actually seen me this week would know that that is a little bit of a fib…)
Anyway, yesterday was just really really nice. It was just nice to be myself. Actually no, I mean it was nice to be around friends.
(Also, we used to have a magnet on the microwave that read – ‘You’ll always be my friend; you know too much.’ That’s definitely true of last night.)
(I’ve not really thought this through and I’m in a bit of a rush. Better to blog then to not though eh…)
I’ve always said I’ve liked honestly, except it’s always been something I’ve, personally, found difficult for a whole raft of reasons. Isn’t it better to say what’s on your mind, that thing that’s bothering you? Often, the words will sit on my the tip of my tongue and just hang there. It’s often a case of ‘this is what I want to say but it’s just easier to say nothing’. It doesn’t really apply to a particular situation, say the fairer sex or family members. It’s in everything.
Except something different happened on Thursday and just got me thinking. What honesty actually means? It’s not saying everything you’re thinking and feeling I don’t think. Does it depend on the situation, picking the time when to open your mouth and say something? Who knows.
All I know is that on Wednesday, I opened my mouth and spoke to the teacher whose class I cover for for 2 hours a week (I could write so much about that 2 hours) and told her that I found the class difficult to manage. It just happened, because as I sat there I was almost sure the words would catch one more time. We talked about it and how we could change the situation and she was incredibly supportive. So now things will change and something different will happen because of it. I like that feeling.
(I mean I prefixed what I said by saying ‘if I’m honest’ but you’ve got to start somewhere? Right?)
The Guardian has a series called First Person which I occasionally go back to and read when I remember to.
Today I read this one > http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/06/nicholas-taylor-buried-alive
“How my life was changed by being buried in Mother Earth for a night…
When day broke I was dug out and cried in gratitude for nothing more than living to see another morning. I walked in the ordinary miracle of day and I felt rinsed through; clean as water. Everywhere I looked life was phenomenal, an exceptional gift that I was fortunate enough to bear witness to. I had walked into the jaws of death and was still alive.
I am now a qualified shamanic practitioner. My burial is something I don’t often talk about, but it’s there in everything I do. For all the misery and suffering that’s reported and circulated, I recommend a diet of anything that makes you feel grateful to be alive. We’re only here a few summers after all and we have a duty to honour this world as the marvel it is. The most lasting effect of being buried alive is I try to do one thing each day that scares the daylights out of me. The other day it was painting my sitting room magnolia.
I think there’s a lot of truth in there.