What if you added this to today’s goals:
“….with presence and care.”
For example, “Today, I will attend present at the sales meeting with presence and care.”
Or,
“I will work with my subcontractors to complete this project with presence and care.”
I believe you will see a difference in how your day goes, for the better.
My daughter Josie (often the illustrator for my blog), created this clay dog tonight with presence and care.
Cool, huh?
My daughters love sujebi, a Korean hand-torn noodle soup. My mother makes a fantastic soup and I have not encountered it at a restaurant (yet). Supposedly, sujebi goes back to the Goryeo period (935 – 1392) and was a dish served on special occasions. The inexpensive nature of it (veggies and wheat flour) have made it more of a common comfort food these days.
Mandu is Korean for potsticker. Here is a picture of Maangchi’s sujebi using mandu. I am NOT nearly as industrious and I’m not so sure my daughters would like it anyway, so I made the traditional kind:
I have made sujebi for my daughters before. They just love the soft dumplings in spicy broth. It’s very lame, the way I have made it and this blog post has led to some research which produced much better sujebi on my part. They wanted it tonight and I didn’t have all the ingredients so I substituted a few things. Instead of anchovies (which I didn’t have), I used the seafood packet from this:
I also used some sesame oil in the broth (never did that before) and added a bit of vegetable oil to the wheat flour for the dumplings (another first). I also added diced carrots and squash this time. You might be wondering….what did you used to do? I’m ashamed to tell you. So I won’t. Suffice it to say, it was quite lame.
One thing that bothers me about this dish is the lack of protein. I am going to add shrimp next time – Josie gave three cheers and Ava gave me a frown. You can’t please everyone!
You ought to check out Maangchi’s recipe. It’s fantastic: Maangchi’s sujebi recipe.
The girls LOVED my sujebi tonight! And I felt good serving it. Thank you, readers, for inspiring me to learn and share.
Good night!
These don’t work. There’s no way to reach lofty goals except to work hard. In fact, exceptional goals all require one factor: Grit.
Angela Duckworth coined the term when she distinguished the difference between her 7th grade public school math students who excelled those who didn’t. She also noticed this difference between her colleagues and herself – some of her co-workers had become experts over 20 years studying the same subject. Although she was always achievement-minded, Duckworth felt her work was much less focused on any one area. She defines this special characteristic “grit” – “a passionate commitment to a single mission and an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission.” (Paul Tough, How Children Succeed)
Duckworth created a 12 question grit survey. Answers to questions such as: “New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones” were answered by a 1 to 5 point scale responses (1 = not like me at all to 5 = very much like me). Although the surveys were self-administered, they found the results to be quite accurate and indicative of future success. In fact, they administered it to 1200 military cadets at West Point. Out of several other tests used to predict graduation rates, Duckworth’s 12 question survey was the most predictive.
Why does this matter? Perhaps because so much has always weighed on IQ or “intelligence.” If one can harness the power of grit, one can achieve anything.
Having a hard time getting regular about writing?
Natalie Goldberg suggests you hook up with a fellow (local) writer. Tell her/him that you’ll meet ’em at the local coffee shop at 3pm. When they say they can’t meet, stop them and say, “No, no. I don’t want to know whether you’ll be there or not. I will go and write whether you’re there or not.” You continue this way: email, text, call your friend and make a writing date and keep it no matter what.
You could also blog or publish your work every day and tell everyone you know that you’ll be publishing daily. Believe me, there’s nothing like being held publicly accountable!
Seth Godin has excellent tips on doing this. In fact, I started writing my blog again (following a long absence) after reading about his philosophy. Godin encourages you to write every day – even badly – because it will get your brain working to think crisply, analytically, every day. You notice things more. He’s right!
And if that monkey mind starts to chatter (“This isn’t good… people won’t like this, etc.”) tell that monkey that it is far easier to criticize than to create!
Stuck?
Are you writing? Acting? Creating? Working?
What you are producing is coming through you. It’s not of you.
Leave your ego out of it.
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Let it come through. Have fun with it.
I practice yoga at home. I don’t practice enough, but when I do, I like Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga video.
My favorite part of the practice is when he says:
“It’s not WHAT you do, but HOW you do what you do.”
He says it slowly and it makes me think every time. Yes, how you do what you do.
Example #1:
Your server at the restaurant carefully places the plate in front of you, smiles and wordlessly refills your glass.
OR…
Your server brusquely sets your plate down and hurries off to the next table.
Example #2:
Your daughter tells you a story and you listen while looking at your cell phone. She feels like an after thought.
OR…
You give your daughter full attention – eyes and ears – as she tells you a story. She feels loved and respected.
We have our “to do” lists. We have jobs that have to be done. We do these action items day after day and they build up to weeks, months and years. This is called “our life.” There is no end to the things that need to be done. But the quality of our life is in the how of what we’ve done on a consistent basis.
Fossilized remains show us what living creatures were doing at time of death. We can learn from fossils: climate, diet, relationships, social structures (even of insects).
Chances are, you won’t be an actual fossil. Unless you’re caught up in something really dramatic, sudden and devastating, like the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii (79 A.D.) However, you will leave a legacy. What will it be? Works of art? Enlightening music, film or novels? Or a career of corruption? Maybe you will leave lives richer for your kindness?
My great, great, grandparents lived in Korea. Everything they did affected their children, which affected their children and so on until you have me. Here. In America. My father made the decision to not be like his father, who basically failed at fatherhood: gambled, left the family in debt, etc. My father chose to do the opposite. Because of his decisions and hard work, my siblings, mother, father and I are able to live in the Land of Opportunity.
Whatever you do, whatever you leave, it’s not permanent, but it does count.
Citations:
*http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2013/09/page/2
**http://tinyurl.com/hrmzu4d
When you’re remarkable (really, really, really good), you can:
all it takes is a ton of dedication, focus and work
Simple!
We run around and cross off tasks from our “To Do” lists because we believe we are not enough just as we are. We must achieve.
The misconception is that if we don’t do, we are lazy.
Non-doing is not being lazy. It’s simply the decision to be unoccupied.
Sometimes, non-doing is just what we need.
Breathe.
Notice what is right in front of you.
From stillness comes magic.
In order to build your dream house, you might have to destroy the dilapidated building that stands on the property first. You have to clear the area. And then you build. You have to spend money, hire people to help, do some problem-solving, tear some hair out…but in the end, it’s built. And your dream comes true.
When you want to increase muscle in your body, you have to lift heavy weights. This hurts. I guess that’s why so many people don’t do it. But when you tear those muscles, your body works to build them up again – stronger. And you can lift things you couldn’t lift before. And you feel good and you look good and your lover/spouse can’t keep his/her hands off of you. Hm, might be worth the pain?
There are people who are working hard at a relationship that brings more tears than laughter. “Well, I’ll forgive so-and-so again, he/she didn’t mean to hurt me, etc.” They spend their precious time trying to make the other person into someone he/she isn’t. They invest their energies only to be disappointed time and time again. They hope he/she won’t yell/hit/stay out late/do drugs/get drunk anymore. But their partner isn’t changing. Some major tearing down and clearing is necessary in order for something special and amazing to be built.
What do you need to destroy and clear out before beginning again?
Kismet 