Tag: change

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Do You Want to Change?

For a good portion of my life I was the self-help Queen – I read every self-help book there was, took lots of courses, attended many seminars. All that motivational, improve yourself stuff only helped me marginally, and that is being generous. Mostly, it emptied my pocket and made others rich.

Do you want to change?

Here is how.

Get rid of all your self help books.

Go to ground zero. Accept yourself right now, as you are, warts and all. The books are wrong. Motivational speakers are wrong. There is nothing wrong with you that the following can’t fix.

Education: Instead of reading self help junk, read about subjects you don’t know anything about; history, aeronautics, architecture, psychology, mechanics, biology, the list is endless. Read biographies. Read all kinds of fiction. Watch documentaries. Check out your library – so much for free! Take courses on-line with EdX and Coursera (from Universities all over the world, for free!!) Fill your mind with all kinds of interesting stuff.

Experience: Get out there and try things. See things. Go to museums and art galleries. Visit different lands, experience unique cultures and talk to people. Go to university lectures and seminars. Go to concerts. Symphonies. Theatre.

Listen: When people talk, hear what they are saying. You will learn some unexpected things!

Be open: Say YES to life and enjoy all it has to offer. Keep an open mind. Be optimistic. Find the good in the bad. Let go of your opinions and judgements.

All of this will magically do a zillion times more than any self help book.

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Restless

Whenever there is a change in season I usually start to get restless, mostly just for a change of scene. A change is as good as a rest – well, maybe later after you’ve made the change, then you can rest. Making your apartment different takes a lot of work. Moving stuff around in a tiny crowded space is a challenge.

So, I moved some furniture around while cat supervised.

I got sweaty and tired, and did a good cleaning too. Actually got rid of a piece of furniture, a bench I made, that although I made it to last a thousand years (I could not get the thing apart!) it was mostly useless and hogging space. Not easy to discard stuff you make yourself, but sometimes you gotta.

And as usual, I experienced the same phenomena that happens every time I think I am making things better.

That is, I end up with many displaced items, wondering where the heck it all came from, and where the heck am I going to now put them?

Yeah, I know, a purge is a good move.

That is where the other strange phenomena happens.

I can discard bags of stuff, and I mean, BAGS of stuff, and nothing looks any different.

This time, there is a bit more space to walk around, in the living room, but now the bedroom has taken on the brunt of that.

Sigh.

Spring will come and I will do it all again. Move stuff from the bedroom back to the living room.

With the same results.

Is all good.

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Never

I like the word Never.

It is both final and infinite.

It is like a buffer stop at the end of the train tracks. It is also like the universe, an infinite expanding je ne sais quoi.

And not terribly helpful.

You’ll never be an artist or writer (well, 19 books and a blog 2 1/2 years running later. . .)

You’ll never get a degree (a Bachelor of Arts if you please)

You’ll never make your living as a creative (well, still working on that one!)

My point is not to brag. My point is never is a long, long time of not. There aren’t too many things that are never. People are changeable, adaptable and quite clever. The universe is always on the move. So is time.

We usually can find a way to disqualify never.

And that is by doing.

The people who tell me never have just issued me a challenge. But sometimes it’ll get me down. It has in the past, destroyed me.

I hope no one has told you a never that stopped you in your tracks.

If it has, I challenge you to question that never. Nevers can become beliefs, and when they do, we stop examining them and just live them.

Take a belief out of your pocket and have a good look at it. Is it your never?

I’ll never do or have or be this or that? Who says! Only you.

Take your never out for a walk and show it who is boss.