“It seems to me that some of us value information over wonder, and noise over silence. And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives.”
Fred Rogers
anxiety
Tension is a Choice
“Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you’re attached to something not true for you.”
Byron Katie
Decide = “to cut off”
“Nobody makes you upset. Your mind makes you upset. It’s time to ask the question, Why do I allow people or experiences or things to determine how I’m going to think, feel, or act?”
Eric Butterworth
Hello, and what do you do?
“When you completely identify with your role (mother…doctor…), then something vital is missing. If you play a role at work, you always have a secondary motive because the ego is at work. You’re not totally focused on the task at hand because there is some self-interest there. You want to protect yourself. You want to get credit for yourself…or use the people around you.”
Eckhart Tolle
Current State of Humanity
“Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself. Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in. Whether you complain aloud or only in thought makes no difference.”
Eckhart Tolle
Mary Oliver*
Wild Geese
Oliver, who cited Walt Whitman as an influence, is best known for her awe-filled, often hopeful, reflections on and observations of nature. “Mary Oliver’s poetry is an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization,” wrote one reviewer for the Harvard Review, “for too much flurry and inattention, and the baroque conventions of our social and professional lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making.”
Her honors include an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Oliver held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001. She lived for over forty years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with her partner Molly Malone Cook, a photographer and gallery owner. After Cook’s death in 2005, Oliver later moved to the southeastern coast of Florida. Oliver died of cancer at the age of eighty-three in Hobe Sound, Florida, on January 17, 2019.
*This contents of this post come from Poets.org
Mary Oliver reminds me to look to nature whenever I feel humans are letting the world down. Rejoice in the strength of the trees and the persistent bloom of flowers.
-CCW
Presence = Peace
“You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.” – Eckhart Tolle
Focus on Gratitude
“When you’re grateful, you can’t be angry.
When you’re grateful, you can’t be worried.
Anger and fear are what screw people up most…in their relationships and in their business.”
Tony Robbins
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
I pack my daughters’ lunches on school days. Yes, they’re teenagers and could do it themselves and no, I’m not spoiling them. I do it because it really is a pleasure for me.
Monday, I packed chicken quesadillas. I used Costco shredded cheese. Literally, it says “Mexican Blend Cheese“:
Ava comes home and says, “The Mexican boys at my table saw my lunch and asked me why you use yellow cheese. I told them that I have a Korean mom.”
!
Tuesday, I packed garlicky pasta. Because I’m so nice and thoughtful, I taped a piece of gum on the thermos:
No comment from the peanut gallery teens.
Wednesday, I packed Korean sticky rice and threw in some dried seaweed. Ava says she wants to be more vegetarian, so I thought this was perfect.
She came home and said, “I got so much teasing over my Asian lunch.”
Thursday, I packed more Korean sticky rice and baked tilapia. But when I looked for small tupperware, I had none. I’ve decided to stop using plastic bags (you know, the ocean and all) and so I had to use the zipper pouches I wrote about before:
Yes, I put fish in a bag.
That afternoon, Ava comes home and sighs.
“Could you please pack lunches that won’t get me beat up*?”
*Obviously, she’s not really getting beat nor bullied.
Midterm Meditation
I’ve been on a “news fast “for almost four weeks now. Yesterday was the midterm elections and the itch to check in was inflammatory.
However, I have voted.
I’ve done my part.
That’s all one can do.
Worrying and hoping do no good.
Kismet 