Category Archives: Mabel Magazine

Don’t Wait

9 Replies

Becoming-Who-We-Know-We-AreI wrote a guest post for Laura Simms at Create as Folk, Becoming Who We Know We Are. The picture above is the one she created to go with the post. I’ve been thinking (and writing and talking) a lot about this lately, how important it is to just begin, to give yourself permission and make space, to go ahead and start.

The prompt this morning from my 5 year journal was, “If you didn’t have any responsibilities for the day, what would you do?” The list I made was exactly what how I plan on spending my time when we get to Oregon in a few weeks: Sleep in. Write and meditate. Do yoga. Eat good food. Nap. Read. Watch TV. Sit in the backyard. Take a walk.

This reminded me of an article I read over 15 years ago on Escape from America, a magazine dedicated to helping people relocate to other countries, live as expatriates. I was reading it at that time because Eric and I used to fantasize about moving to another country, specifically Australia. In an article about making a big move, a huge change in your life, the author recommended that you live as closely as you can now to the life you dream of, rather than waiting. Don’t wait until you retire or move to Australia. Start living as close as you can to your dream life now.

The argument the author made was if you do this, you’ll be happier now, rather than later — and we all know that none of us are guaranteed a later. The author explained that maybe you’ll find out that you don’t really like what you’ve imagined and save yourself from waking up on an island somewhere with no electricity having sold and changed everything only to find yourself missing your old life, still unsatisfied with where you find yourself. Or you might make some changes and live that dream life now, realizing you don’t have to move or retire or make any other drastic change to have what you want.

It’s a good lesson, one that I encounter over and over: don’t wait. In my own words from my guest post, “Stop thinking about it, stop wishing for it, and start.” I also wrote a piece for Mabel Magazine about beginning (the issue comes out in June), and said something similar:

mabelpullquote

Image by Mabel Magazine

What tiny step can you take today, right now, towards your dream? What can you do to begin to live a life that reflects what matters to you, what you love? It can be the smallest thing, but that action is like a prayer, a promise, medicine and magic. Give yourself permission, kind and gentle reader. Stop waiting for something to happen and happen.

Something Good

7 Replies

1. Why You Need to Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are from Fast Company.

2. The Not List from Rachel Cole. Rachel has a new Intuitive Eating Guided Reading Group starting in mid-May.

3. From Seth Godin: “How do I get rid of the fear?” and The bottomless pit of pleasing strangers and They’re your words, choose them.

4. Show Your Work! – SXSW Interactive 2014, a talk by Austin Kleon.

5. Here Are The 31 Best Incidents Of Irony Ever Photographed. #9 Must Be Some Kind Of Cruel Joke. from Viral Nova.

6. Jeff Oaks is on a break from teaching, so he’s writing all kinds of good stuff. For example, Writing/Dreams and April: some notes.

7. 10 Ways to Own Less from Be More With Less.

8. A Magical Miniature World Of Snails By Vyacheslav Mishchenko on Bored Panda.

9. Kids From All Around The World Show Off Their Favorite Toys In Disarming Photo Series on Huffington Post.

10. Open Letter to Dr. Oz from be nourished.

10. Mabel Magazine, “is a print magazine that is here to tell real stories about making a living and creating a life.” I have a piece in the first issue, the theme of which is “beginnings.” I think Mabel’s going to be a good thing.

11. 27 Hysterical Haircuts. #6 Made Me Cringe. on the San Francisco Globe. We all do such silly things sometimes.

12. 10 Ways to Do What You Don’t Want to Do on Zen Habits.

13. Heartwarming Thai Commercial – Thai Good Stories By Linaloved. Of everything on this list, this just might be the very best.

14. How a Rescue Dog from Taiwan and Baby Boy from LA became Best Friends on Twisted Sifter.

15. The Worst Thing That Can Happen Rarely Does from Chris Guillebeau.

16. Shared on the Chookooloonks This Was a Good Week list: Artist Rachel Sussman Photographs the Oldest Living Things in the World before They Vanish and the teeniest, tiniest.

17. A sweet Easter poem from James Broughton, “Easter Exultet.”

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!

18. being enough from Pia Jane Bijkerk.

19. Opening the Creative Channel with Andrea Scher and Laurie Wagner on Simply Celebrate.

20. Truthbombs from Danielle LaPorte: “Put down your shield and stand in the rain of blessings,” and “You will always be too much of something for someone. Be yourself anyway.”

21. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Many of our escapes are involuntary: addiction and dissociating from painful feelings are two examples. Anyone who has worked with a strong addiction—compulsive eating, compulsive sex, abuse of substances, explosive anger, or any other behavior that’s out of control—knows that when the urge comes on it’s irresistible. The seduction is too strong. So we train again and again in less highly charged situations in which the urge is present but not so overwhelming. By training with everyday irritations, we develop the knack of refraining when the going gets rough. It takes patience and an understanding of how we’re hurting ourselves not to continue taking the same old escape route of speaking or acting out.

22. Wisdom from Mara Glatzel, a practice,

Take a moment to sit comfortably. Plant your feet on the floor. Settle into your breath, slowly and intentionally.

Feel into your body as you run your mind over the content of your day – your schedule, your obligations, your desire for self-care.

Where are you craving for permission?

Let any answer that comes guide you into your day.

Let it be simple, but follow through.

Know that every time you pause, take stock, and move forward with your own spirit, heart, and need in mind, you are working to feel a little more at home in your life.

23. Watching these two old women fly for the first time is pure gold on Sploid.

24. Wisdom from A Conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Parabola, in which he says,

…if you utilize obstacles properly, then it strengthens your courage, and it also gives you more intelligence, more wisdom. Because there is obstacle, you make attempt; so have to think, have to try something. Have to try certain way; so this gives strength and also wisdom and intelligence. If you use them in wrong way, then discourage, failure, depression.

25. The Metric of More from Paul Jarvis.