Water Opening

"It's a beautiful thing, diving into the cool crisp water and then just sort of being able to pull your body through the water and the water opening up for you." -Dawn Fraser

I find the above quote fascinating in how one can apply it to every day life. Our interaction with others is highly impacted by our own opening up. So many times we develop a thick carapace over our lives. Trying to protect our feelings and person, so much that it becomes a heavy weight on our lives.

When we build walls around our life, there becomes no opportunity for us to experience that cool crisp water. We slowly deteriorate and harden even further to anything beyond what we have within the walls we've erected. The covering becomes such a hard disposition that nothing new can be breathed into it.

If we open ourselves up to the world, things change. Like diving into the water, the world will pull your body through life. It is the world opening up to you. As the words from a song (paraphrased) say, "...you'll love the color of it all."

Remove that hardened shell over your life and experience life for all it is worth. Do not wallow in the silent and lonely darkness. Open up to a life that exists, waiting to pull you to new heights. Once the shell is removed, you will never want to put it back on.

Useless Stuff

"From the time we're born until we die, we're kept busy with artificial stuff that isn't important." -Tom Ford

Yes, I have all of the normal excuses for not writing yesterday.

"I was busy with a lot of important paperwork."
"The world was clearly going to end without it."
"I was the only one on earth capable of doing it."

There are a lot of things we each do every single day. I was busy with the actual work I do each day for a job. You are also very busy each and every day with the work that you do.

But do we pile a lot of non-useful stuff onto the pile of important work. I probably do because I'm one of those multi-tasking type people. I find things to do which fill in and mix with the important stuff. During a slow work week, it can be very useful. But when busy, I have a hard time cutting back and focusing on single tasks.

Heck, if I'm not working composing a document; tweeting every once in a while; checking email; working on a second project; all at the same time while ensuring my coffee cup is full - then I just don't feel I'm getting anything done.

Experts would say that the important work suffers in quality. For me, quality suffers when I become single task oriented. I can become very bored with a single task while doing multiple things keeps me interested in the individual tasks. It is also my creative process.

Creative process you might ask? We may not all be artists in the strict definition of the word. But each of us use some level of 'creativity' in most everything we do. The 'creation' of a business proposal; the 'creation' of a meal at home; the 'creation' of a successful work shift, you probably get the idea.

So what is artificial and what is important when it comes to being busy with life? It is pretty relative to you and those around you. One persons important stuff is anothers artificial stuff. You have to decide for you what works in life and for those that surround your life (ie; spouse, family, friends). You have to decide where the unimportant can be tossed to the side to make room.

All of this sounds like 'setting priorities' in ones life. Well it sort of is and don't be surprised if others judge you based upon your priorities. Use common sense and adjust according to you and (again) those in your life.

Some people thrive in a very busy, multi-tasking world. Some people thrive in a more singular task type of world. Neither is better then the other, neither is the right choice for everyone. You have to figure out which one best fits you. From there, achieving things becomes much easier on your terms, with your style.

Useless stuff can be important, it just depends upon you.

Rain

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead.
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.
When the sun shines they slip into the shade
(When the sun shines down.)
And sip their lemonade.
(When the sun shines down.)
When the sun shines, when the sun shines.
Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the world looks fine.
I can show you that when it starts to rain,
(When the Rain comes down.)
Everything's the same.
(When the Rain comes down.)
I can show you, I can show you.
Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the world looks fine.
Can you hear me, that when it rains and shines,
(When it Rains and shines.)
It's just a state of mind?
(When it rains and shines.)
Can you hear me, can you hear me?
If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
sdaeh rieht edih dna nur yeht semoc niar eht fI.
(Rain)
niaR.
(Rain)
enihsnuS.

There are many ideas as to the meaning of the song. Some suggesting that it speaks about the pending psychedelic movement. In Reason To Rock, the possible answer is that it seems to be, "saying that it doesn’t make much difference what sorts of experiences you have: what makes a difference is what you do with those experiences."

From my years of hearing this song and many things, we tend to over complicate and over analyze things. This song has never been any different to me. Much like the explanation above, there are days of rain and days of sunshine. It is how you approach each of those days which determines the outcome for you.

So let it rain, for the sun remains behind the clouds and will once again shine.

Flower Bed Of Color

“It matters not what goal you seek; its secret here reposes: You've got to dig from week to week, to get Results or Roses” -Edgar Guest

A new week is upon us and you have the opportunity to put a small 'dent in the universe' with your actions. To work hard and advance your life each and everyday is possible when we allow ourselves the effort.

Many will sit and wonder why there are no flowers to smell. They yearn for all that is good yet are unwilling to work for it. They want to swing from a tree branch yet will never plant the tree. It is said "when is the best time to plant a tree?" The answer is twenty years ago. The second best time is today.

To achieve anything, we must start now and begin the process. Waiting will never accomplish the goal. Waiting will forever keep your dreams at a distance. A young girl grows up to raise a wonderful family. Life complete, the years of nurturing results in a flower bed of wonderful colors.

Pick yourself up today, this week and tend to the rose bushes. Nurture your life until one day you can 'stop and smell the roses' of success.

Sunrise

Taking the day off from writing. Yet a great sunrise should never go unseen, which is the power of the internet. Enjoy your weekend.

Your Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone: "a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk."

Each of us have one of those things we call our "comfort zone" in which we stand. We can even see that our abilities should allow us to stretch our boundaries.

But what can you find outside of your comfort zone will never be found until you step out. Taking a chance to stretch beyond you ability will present you with new and greater things.

But it is said that we exist in one of the following conditions.

- We want to maintain our current comfort zone.
- We are dissatisfied with current conditions and want to move to another comfort zone.
- We were suddenly thrust from our comfort zone and want back in.
- We need to make decisions without supporting facts. The comfort zone can be a decision making tool.

There are many different reasons for either staying or wanting to move beyond or to another comfort zone in our lives. But nothing can be done without a decision. Even staying in one place requires a decision to keep things the same.

So how do you break habits; how do you step out of your comfort zone? Here’s a few suggestions on how to do it from Adrian Savage:

Understand the truth about your habits. They always represent past successes. You have formed habitual, automatic behaviors because you once dealt with something successfully, tried the same response next time, and found it worked again. That’s how habits grow and why they feel so useful. To get away from what’s causing your unhappiness and workplace blues, you must give up on many of your most fondly held (and formerly successful) habits. and try new ways of thinking and acting. There truly isn’t any alternative. Those habits are going to block you from finding new and creative ideas. No new ideas, no learning. No learning, no access to successful change.

Do something—almost anything—differently and see what happens. Even the most successful habits eventually lose their usefulness as events change the world and fresh responses are called for. Yet we cling on to them long after their benefit has gone. Past strategies are bound to fail sometime. Letting them become automatic habits that take the controls is a sure road to self-inflicted harm.

Take some time out and have a detailed look at yourself—with no holds barred. Discovering your unconscious habits can be tough. For a start, they’re unconscious, right? Then they fight back. Ask anyone who has ever given up smoking if habits are tough to break. You’ve got used to them—and they’re at least as addictive as nicotine or crack cocaine.

Be who you are. It’s easy to assume that you always have to fit in to get on in the world; that you must conform to be liked and respected by others or face exclusion. Because most people want to please, they try to become what they believe others expect, even if it means forcing themselves to be the kind of person they aren’t, deep down.

You need to start by putting yourself first. You’re unique. We’re all unique, so saying this doesn’t suggest that you’re better than others or deserve more than they do. You need to put yourself first because no one else has as much interest in your life as you do; and because if you don’t, no one else will. Putting others second means giving them their due respect, not ignoring them totally. Keeping up a self-image can be a burden. Hanging on to an inflated, unrealistic one is a curse. Give yourself a break.

Slow down and let go. Most of us want to think of ourselves as good, kind, intelligent and caring people. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t. Reality is complex. We can’t function at all without constant input and support from other people. Everything we have, everything we’ve learned, came to us through someone else’s hands. At our best, we pass on this borrowed existence to others, enhanced by our contribution. At our worst, we waste and squander it. So recognize that you’re a rich mixture of thoughts and feelings that come and go, some useful, some not. There’s no need to keep up a façade; no need to pretend; no need to fear of what you know to be true

There is much you probably want to achieve in your life. By stepping "out of the ordinary" into areas of discomfort, your world will expand. With that expansion will be greater opportunity and success.

Imagine The Impossible

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Our ability to imagine is one of the greatest gifts we as humans have been given. The brain has a science all to itself in which I am sure someone much smarter than I could explain all of this. But in simple terms, millions of neurons contain varying bits of information we have collected over our lifetime.

Much of this information can be reconstructed in an ordered fashion as we learned the information. Such as retrieving '2', '3' and knowing that adding them together equals '5'. Or maybe knowing that 'light', 'switch', 'up' should result in the light turning on. Very basic, but you get the idea that we tend to reassemble all of these bits of data back into a learned pattern.

What if we took all those random bits of information and put them together?

This is what imagination is all about. Taking things learned and mixing them up. Looking for different possibilities. Some would say that much of what we imagine has already been imagined. Could be, but not to you. When you imagine something new, it is new to you, a first time acknowledgement.

When you act upon the imagination, you may find someone has already thought of it. But it wasn't thought of the same way you did. Take your imagination and run with it. Try the impossible that may have been said repeatedly was impossible. Achieve what others may say is unachievable.

Imagine all of the possibilities...