Today's whiteboard quote:
"Yes, life is a mystery, and there is nothing to explain, because everything is just open, it is just in front of you. Encounter it! Meet it! Be courageous!"
~Osho
How will you meet life today?
I will by doing my best to happily get everything squared away for my absence beginning with the red eye to PA tonight! I'm very excited. It'll be a busy weekend, but it's time for another trip.
Standby for updates from the road :)
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Friday, November 7, 2008
Perfection 2 cents
My whiteboard quote for today is:
"The farther a man knows himself to be from perfection, the nearer he is to it."
~Gerard Groote
In my field we keep saying how knowing that we don't know everything brings us closer to true knowledge - how, the more we know, we realize that we actually know less than we started out thinking we did. (I know that sentence is kind of convoluted, but I swear it makes sense...)
I think that's true with happiness too. This morning I was walking into work and thinking about my day, and the fact that Dad's coming to visit today for the first time since his recent move to northern CA, and that this is the first time he and T will meet (which holds great importance for me, of course), and that the Olive Festival is tonight which I've been looking forward to essentially since the last one in October '07, and my feelings about the job that I was walking toward, and on and on.
Then I went off on the job, career, and life tangent - I was raised to take education for granted. My sister was a true genius, and I just followed, thinking that's what everyone did. Now I have a bachelor's, two master's, and am headed toward a Ph.D., and still am not exactly sure what I want to do, or, more truthfully, HOW to do what I want to do.
Perhaps I'll figure it out eventually, perhaps I won't. I used to think that, at some point, the switch had to flip and things had to start being easy. You'd eventually just kind of have it "all" under your thumb and know what you were doing, more or less all the time. At least, that's what it looked like from where I was standing...
...then I realized that, no. No one ever really knows what they're doing. Hell, if I were to see myself now from my 15-year-old-eyes, I would probably think I ended up being one of those people who had it all together and that is CERTAINLY not true. I'm as clueless as I ever was! Sure, maybe now and then I know what's going on, possibly enough to be an authority even. I could talk about the things I know all day, fully confident, but there is so much more to life than those little pockets of knowledge. And no, there's no such real thing as an "adult". We're all little kids, who just think about different things than we did when we were small.
I still have the same mind, the same internal "voice" that I had when I was seven - I just spend my time thinking about different things. And I have more experiences, but my "me" is still the same "me". (another reason to talk to kids like they're people, not like they're "kids" - they are people. Just the same as all of us "grown-ups")
So, for me at least, the answer is to, maybe, know I don't know everything, can't plan everything, yet will likely, if I stay focused, ending up getting some semblance of what I want (heck, it's worked so far), and to always, always make sure I'm paying attention to what's important.
I always used to feel like I was always waiting for my real life to start. That was never true. And now, at least, I know that this IS my life.
And, about the quote, no one is perfect. And everyone is. The non-perfection is part of the greater perfection. As as soon as we can all see that in each other, the world can start to approach perfection too. I think.
Happy Friday! I'll post Olive Festival pics :)
"The farther a man knows himself to be from perfection, the nearer he is to it."
~Gerard Groote
In my field we keep saying how knowing that we don't know everything brings us closer to true knowledge - how, the more we know, we realize that we actually know less than we started out thinking we did. (I know that sentence is kind of convoluted, but I swear it makes sense...)
I think that's true with happiness too. This morning I was walking into work and thinking about my day, and the fact that Dad's coming to visit today for the first time since his recent move to northern CA, and that this is the first time he and T will meet (which holds great importance for me, of course), and that the Olive Festival is tonight which I've been looking forward to essentially since the last one in October '07, and my feelings about the job that I was walking toward, and on and on.
Then I went off on the job, career, and life tangent - I was raised to take education for granted. My sister was a true genius, and I just followed, thinking that's what everyone did. Now I have a bachelor's, two master's, and am headed toward a Ph.D., and still am not exactly sure what I want to do, or, more truthfully, HOW to do what I want to do.
Perhaps I'll figure it out eventually, perhaps I won't. I used to think that, at some point, the switch had to flip and things had to start being easy. You'd eventually just kind of have it "all" under your thumb and know what you were doing, more or less all the time. At least, that's what it looked like from where I was standing...
...then I realized that, no. No one ever really knows what they're doing. Hell, if I were to see myself now from my 15-year-old-eyes, I would probably think I ended up being one of those people who had it all together and that is CERTAINLY not true. I'm as clueless as I ever was! Sure, maybe now and then I know what's going on, possibly enough to be an authority even. I could talk about the things I know all day, fully confident, but there is so much more to life than those little pockets of knowledge. And no, there's no such real thing as an "adult". We're all little kids, who just think about different things than we did when we were small.
I still have the same mind, the same internal "voice" that I had when I was seven - I just spend my time thinking about different things. And I have more experiences, but my "me" is still the same "me". (another reason to talk to kids like they're people, not like they're "kids" - they are people. Just the same as all of us "grown-ups")
So, for me at least, the answer is to, maybe, know I don't know everything, can't plan everything, yet will likely, if I stay focused, ending up getting some semblance of what I want (heck, it's worked so far), and to always, always make sure I'm paying attention to what's important.
I always used to feel like I was always waiting for my real life to start. That was never true. And now, at least, I know that this IS my life.
And, about the quote, no one is perfect. And everyone is. The non-perfection is part of the greater perfection. As as soon as we can all see that in each other, the world can start to approach perfection too. I think.
Happy Friday! I'll post Olive Festival pics :)
Monday, November 3, 2008
May You Live
There is a whiteboard next to my office door, on the hallway side. Why there would be a whiteboard outside the office of an administrative assistant's office (which is the only thing mine could be used as, judging by its placement), I don't know (really, does anyone leave notes often enough to have a board permanently affixed there?), but, early in my time here, I decided to make use of it.
I love inspirational quotes. And I don't use the term "love" lightly. While at UF I would write a quote that touched me on a post-it and put it on my wall, or desk, or somewhere I would see it. By the end of each semester, I had a nearly wallpapered office. And desk. And filing cabinet that stood next to my desk. Oh, and bookshelf (the side that faces the desk, not the part that actually holds the books. That would just be weird).
So, I thought that, since I love them and they help me so much (nowadays, I only put the REALLY good ones up in my office. At present, there's one that is a semi-permanent fixture on my desk. On an orange post-it of course), I would use the whiteboard to put up a quote that inspired me each day, in the hopes that it would inspire people who were walking down my hall too.
Note: I have an inspirational calendar and get a newsletter-y email or two a day that have that kind of stuff, so I have a few to pick from on any given day. I only use the really good ones. Sometimes none of them are good so I have to go into my quotey archives...
In any event, today's quote is
May you live all the days of your life.
~Jonathan Swift
I thought that one would be good to start the blog with. That's my soapbox - to LIVE your life. Even if all you do is wake up, head to work, head home, have some dinner, then watch a TV show or two and go to bed, it's my opinion (and what I hope to someday soon, REALLY write about and give seminars about) that to notice, to really see and feel and experience all that happens, is the whole point. And it can get more complex and emotional and spiritual and whatever, and that'll come in later blogs. But for now, the thought is just to notice. Tiny things, like the way your clothes feel against your skin, the way that the air feels cool as it moves down through your nostrils and into your lungs with each breath, and the way the sun is shining. Or the way the rain is falling. Who knows - one day this may be exactly where you want to be in your memory. See what's going on around and within you, just in case.
In other news, welcome to my blog! I decided to finally start my own when I realized that #1: It's hypocritical of me to be so addicted to others' blogs, some of which I've never even met, and #2: According to the 10,000 hour theory (will explain another time), all the writing I can do will likely help my end goals:) Thanks for stopping by, and please leave comments! I also have another page or two floating around in the cyberspace ether, which I'll put in my info section.
Have a great day!
I love inspirational quotes. And I don't use the term "love" lightly. While at UF I would write a quote that touched me on a post-it and put it on my wall, or desk, or somewhere I would see it. By the end of each semester, I had a nearly wallpapered office. And desk. And filing cabinet that stood next to my desk. Oh, and bookshelf (the side that faces the desk, not the part that actually holds the books. That would just be weird).
So, I thought that, since I love them and they help me so much (nowadays, I only put the REALLY good ones up in my office. At present, there's one that is a semi-permanent fixture on my desk. On an orange post-it of course), I would use the whiteboard to put up a quote that inspired me each day, in the hopes that it would inspire people who were walking down my hall too.
Note: I have an inspirational calendar and get a newsletter-y email or two a day that have that kind of stuff, so I have a few to pick from on any given day. I only use the really good ones. Sometimes none of them are good so I have to go into my quotey archives...
In any event, today's quote is
May you live all the days of your life.
~Jonathan Swift
I thought that one would be good to start the blog with. That's my soapbox - to LIVE your life. Even if all you do is wake up, head to work, head home, have some dinner, then watch a TV show or two and go to bed, it's my opinion (and what I hope to someday soon, REALLY write about and give seminars about) that to notice, to really see and feel and experience all that happens, is the whole point. And it can get more complex and emotional and spiritual and whatever, and that'll come in later blogs. But for now, the thought is just to notice. Tiny things, like the way your clothes feel against your skin, the way that the air feels cool as it moves down through your nostrils and into your lungs with each breath, and the way the sun is shining. Or the way the rain is falling. Who knows - one day this may be exactly where you want to be in your memory. See what's going on around and within you, just in case.
In other news, welcome to my blog! I decided to finally start my own when I realized that #1: It's hypocritical of me to be so addicted to others' blogs, some of which I've never even met, and #2: According to the 10,000 hour theory (will explain another time), all the writing I can do will likely help my end goals:) Thanks for stopping by, and please leave comments! I also have another page or two floating around in the cyberspace ether, which I'll put in my info section.
Have a great day!
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